


The Ghosts that Linger

by MeteorAtDusk



Series: The Ghosts that Linger [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Canon-typical language, Gen, Haunted Houses, Horror, Slow Build, Underage Drinking, suicide/suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 85,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7811581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeteorAtDusk/pseuds/MeteorAtDusk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her last year of college Carolina and her friends move into the Director’s ancestral home, a beautiful old building in the mountains outside of town.  But the house has a history, and some secrets should remain undisturbed.  Can they survive the ghosts that linger here?  </p>
<p>(Title from the Trocadero album)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Uninvited

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine that someone has probably done something like this before, but this story just wouldn't let me rest until I wrote it. This is an old school haunted house story, slow build and all. That being said, please make sure to read the warnings. This is a horror story, and if I do my job right it will have horrifying things in it. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter specifically include canon-typical language (which can include some ableist language), and underage drinking.
> 
> Updates are every other Friday, and chapter two will be posted on September 2nd. If you'd like to come by and say hello I'm on tumblr too, where I am also @meteoratdusk. I hope you enjoy the story!

There was nothing wrong with the house itself.

Some houses, they say, are built bad.  Not badly, mind, but _bad_.  It is as if there is something in the very bones of a building that can be wrong, set unnaturally against the grasping skeletal hands of surrounding trees, a tomb of strange angles and cold sighs, echoes in the night with no origin.  These houses are never homes, always one step away from empty, one accident from standing unoccupied for another ten years, or twenty, or eighty, until someone new comes along lacking the good sense to heed the way their flesh prickles as the house breathes around them, waiting, watching.  In time there is always someone willing to step inside, to push through the door and ignore the hair on the back of their neck standing on end and the whisper to run.

There was nothing wrong with the house itself, she told him as he stared up at the dark eaves from the driveway.  In the fading August light he couldn’t make out the color of the walls or the shape of the roof, just a vast black shadow slanting towards them as the sun set behind the western wing.

“My—the Director had it locked up almost ten years ago,” she was saying, rummaging for the keys before tossing her bag back into the truck and kicking the door shut.  “He used to run his practice out of the study, but it was inconvenient for a lot of his patients and not long after he sent me off to school he decided the house was too big for just him and packed it all up, moved into town.  Then he got the job at St. Dymphna’s and he never bothered to come back.  That was years ago, obviously, but the house is still in good condition.  We just need to open a few windows, maybe dust some of the furniture off a bit.”

“And we’re sure it isn’t haunted?” he asked, still looking up and up at the tall, empty windows.  They seemed to stare back at him, unblinking, a voiceless dare and a silent warning.  On the upper east side of the structure was a large round window, broken and half boarded up, the only blemish on the intimidating façade. 

She rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the elbow, dragging him none too gently into the little courtyard and towards the painted steps leading up to the arched double doors.

“York, if you start this again I will strangle you,” she said, fitting the key into the lock.

“I’m just saying, Carolina,” York said, not uneasily, not at all, just with a certain amount of healthy skepticism. “Huge, vacant houses don’t fall rent-free into poor college students’ laps without a catch.”

“The catch is the commute,” Carolina said with exaggerated patience.  She pushed at the door, and then shouldered it open with a grunt.  “Forty-five minutes away from campus isn’t exactly ideal.  But it’s free, and it’s a good house.  Come on.”

Once he was through the door, York had to admit that Carolina might be right.  She usually was, as she was well aware, so he didn’t make a point of telling her.  She could probably see it in his face, anyway, as he gazed in astonishment at the elaborate wood parquet of the huge foyer, the staircase across from them zigzagging its way up to where an ornate chandelier hung from the far-off vaulted ceiling.  The second floor was an open hallway overlooking the entrance on three sides, doors standing back from the bannister and looking down on them like an audience lining the balcony.  Inside the house was light and open, even with the stale air of nearly a decade of little use.

“I thought you said this house was old?” York asked, stepping forward to peer around the corner.  To his left through an open archway was a huge, long living room, the bulky shapes of furniture covered with sheets nearly glowing in the light of the setting sun that streamed through the room’s many windows, casting black shadows into every corner.

“The Director had it renovated extensively after he inherited it from his uncle,” Carolina explained.  She brushed past him into the room and began pulling sheets down, revealing out-of-date but comfortable looking sofas and chairs.  Wadding up the fabric, she coughed in the rising dust.  “Go open the windows,” she said, nodding towards the front of the room.  “We need to air this place out as much as possible before everyone gets here tomorrow.”

“Sir, yes sir,” York followed her orders, throwing open the large bay windows overlooking the driveway and taking a grateful breath of fresh air.  Carolina opened the other windows in the room before gathering up the pile of sheets and walking back to the foyer.  She tossed the bundle on the floor near the staircase, just shy of a delicate table holding an empty crystal vase, and moved on to the eastern side of the house, York trailing after her curiously.

Through an archway to the right of the foyer was a dining room, a large, sturdy wooden table set solidly in the space and backed by large French doors that opened into a garden.  To the left the dining room flowed seamlessly into an open-plan kitchen, probably one of the changes made in the renovations.  If the foyer of the house embodied space and echoes and a sense of hushed awe, this room was altogether friendlier.

“Cozy,” York remarked, blithely.

“Bathroom’s around the corner,” Carolina said, gesturing vaguely past the kitchen but ignoring it entirely.  Instead she turned to her right, opening a door to a room that seemed to be half windows.  Bay windows overlooked the drive, this time with a window seat, windows to the east showed a view of the garden, and to the west looked out on the small square courtyard and front steps of the house.  The whole building was like a horseshoe, York realized, the back-lit shape of it finally resolving in his mind.  This was the room on the east side that corresponded to the living room in the west wing.

“This used to be my playroom,” Carolina said, grinning as she unlatched every window, letting in the twilight breeze.  “South facing windows, best light in the house in the mornings.  Feel that?  It’s the warmest room in the house.”

“I’m guessing you’re calling dibs on this one, then?” York said, amused.  It didn’t seem any warmer to him, but he couldn’t deny that the view was great.  “What, no closet?” he asked, giving the room another look.

Carolina glanced at him and raised an eyebrow.  York couldn’t quite bite back a laugh at the look.  Carolina, her bright red hair tied back in a sensible ponytail, was wearing her standard outfit today: jeans and a teal tank top.  When it got cold, sometimes she would mix it up a little and add in a black long-sleeved shirt.  She had other clothes, nicer clothes that York had _seen_ her wear, but short of a death or a marriage trying to get her into anything else was like wrestling a shark.  Even tackling the subject could lead to injuries, and she could and would kick his ass if he implied what she wore made even an ounce of difference to who she was.  If he hadn’t seen her packing up her clothes he might have sworn that she only owned two shirts.

“Don’t worry, Mr. High Fashion,” she said wryly, giving his own gold t-shirt and ratty jeans a once over, “your room has a closet.”

“My room?” York repeated, blinking.  He laughed.  “Let me guess, you’ve already assigned everyone’s rooms, haven’t you?” he said.

“Of course,” she replied, waving him out the door and taking him back through the foyer and into the western side of the house.  “If I left decisions to you guys North would be sleeping in the kitchen, Maine would live in the backyard, Wyoming would have full reign of the entire second floor, and you’d probably trap Wash in the basement.”

“What about me?”

“ _You_ never would have made it into the house,” she teased as she opened the door at the back of the living room.  “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” she added as he stepped into the room that was apparently now his.

Once again, she was absolutely right.

“Okay, I’ll give you this one,” York said, looking around.  The room was, like most of the house, spacious and airy, and had its own set of French doors leading out onto a patio on the side of the house.  The back lawn stretched out beyond his windows, offering a fantastic view of the woods beyond.  Filtered through the leaves of the trees, the light of the setting sun cast an almost green tint on the woodwork, the whole room transformed into something glowing and alive.

“It was the Director’s study,” Carolina said smugly.  “He used to have appointments with patients here before he moved shop.”

“Alright, you’ve impressed me,” York said, looking over the old desk and peeking into the closet before opening the French doors and sticking his head outside to take in the smell of pine and fresh earth.  “I take back what I said about the house.”

“You know what else is nice about this arrangement?” Carolina said quietly, her hand falling lightly on top of his where it rested on the doorknob and pulling the door closed with a hushed click.  “Everyone else will be on the second floor,” she murmured, crowding in behind him.  “It’ll be just the two of us down here.  Alone.”

York found himself grinning as he turned into her embrace and returned her soft kiss.  The more he saw of the place the more he was looking forward to living there. 

 

*

 

The States, as they had come to be called by the majority of the campus, were something of a puzzle to outsiders.  They were an eclectic group, with majors and interests that ranged across the board and no obvious reasons to associate with each other.  They had only one thing in common: all of them were driven.  They were leaders.  Carolina captained more than one sports team, all of which she had taken to victory in the past two years, while Maine was MVP on the football team and both North and York were top students in their departments.  CT was the most dogged reporter for the campus newspaper.  As such a tightknit, influential group, personalities larger than life, it was no wonder that people were starting to talk.

It was their nicknames that really got the rumors started.  Some of the younger students were fully convinced that the States ran some secret underground club, were part of a college illuminati organization bent on campus domination or something equally ridiculous.  The conspiracy theorists believed that the States’ chosen designations meant that membership was possible for up to fifty people.  It was true that the group gained new members each year, and every one of them was given an appropriate nickname.

York had almost fallen out of his chair laughing when Wash finally brought it up.  Carolina had rolled her eyes, a slight smile creeping over her face whether she meant it to or not, and North had shaken his head and quietly passed York his water when he started choking on his lunch.  The truth, they had explained, wasn’t nearly so sinister or interesting.

In fact, it all more or less came down to coincidence and York’s inability to pass up a bad joke.

“We all happened to take the same class.  That was it,” Carolina had said, huffing impatiently, the big mystery solved.

“Well, there’s a little more to the story than that,” York had interjected.  “Throw the kid a bone, Carolina, he’s curious.  And he’s the only one who’s ever had the balls to ask.”

The class, it turned out, was Intro to American History, a course required to graduate that most students took in their freshman year.  While the subject was ostensibly the history of their great nation, in actuality the class was all about learning to deal with a college workload.  Research papers and group projects were the real focus, and the very first one brought the five original States – “The colonies,” York joked – together.  It was very nearly a disaster.

Maine had never been good with communication, failing at every turn to tell the others when he could meet or what he could do for the project.  North and York had been roommates, taking the class together in their second semester so they could remind each other of their assignments, and they had an unfortunate tendency to leave the others out.  Wyoming, a student who was already a later-comer to college and a senior to boot, taking a course he’d forgotten was required, was disinclined to listen to these fresh-faced teenagers and spent a good deal of his time simply rolling his eyes at them.  Carolina was the only reason they didn’t fall apart at the seams.

“Carolina takes no shit,” York told Wash pointedly.  “Remember that.”

“I just didn’t want to fail the project,” Carolina retorted, exasperated.

She had more or less kicked their asses until the work was complete.  After it had been handed in, graded, and returned with a great big red ‘A’ emblazoned across the cover page, they had realized something.

“We worked well together,” North explained with a slight smile.  “Different skillsets and interests, and once we got our heads out of our asses it was obvious we made a good team.  So we decided to stick together as a study group.”

“After that I couldn’t get rid of them,” Carolina said, but the turn of her lips was fond.

“Okay, but… what about the nicknames?” Wash asked, still puzzled.  “What’s that about?”

“Have you taken the class yet?” North asked.

Wash shook his head.

“Didn’t fit into my schedule this year,” he explained.  “I’m taking it next semester.”

“The final is a research paper on the history of individual states.  The class caps at fifty, so everyone gets assigned a different one.”

“Since Carolina here is actually named after a state,” York said, grinning, “I thought it’d be funny if she was assigned one of the Carolinas.”

“Fortunately, the professor apparently didn’t share York’s juvenile sense of humor,” Carolina broke in.  “I was assigned Texas.”

“So I said obviously that was a sign and we’d have to start calling her Texas instead—”

“And instead of kicking York in the balls, which was probably her first instinct,” North continued as Carolina snorted a laugh that was very clear confirmation, “she asks how he’d like it if we all started calling him New York.”

“I was being sarcastic,” Carolina said, exasperated, “but York’s an idiot—”

“Best nickname I’ve ever had,” York said cheerfully.

“—and decided that was a great idea.  Started calling everyone by the state they’d been assigned.”

“Except you,” North said.

“The day I answer to Texas is the day you bury me,” Carolina said darkly.  Wash gulped.

“She already has a perfectly good state name anyway,” York said, waving it off.

“But that’s just the five of you,” Wash said, still curious.  “What about the others?”

“South got drawn into the group by association,” North said ruefully.  “And she got saddled with the name because of the twin thing—”

“And because she’s basically your exact opposite,” York added.  “Male and female, cold and hot, patient and crazy, North and South, and all that jazz.”

Carolina gave him a deeply unimpressed look and he grinned back cheekily.  North just sighed.

“We met CT the next year,” Carolina continued.  “Hers was just the next obvious step from Connie’s name.”

“And Florida?”

The others glanced at each other.  Wash hadn’t even met the enigmatic Florida yet, but the others had talked about him.

“Florida is… Florida,” York said, sounding almost bemused.  “He kinda does his own thing, y’know?”

“He’s a friend of Wyoming’s,” North clarified, “started coming to our meet ups.  He comes and goes.  He earned the nickname because _some people_ didn’t want to use his real one.”

“ _Butch Flowers!_ ” York said, throwing his arms up.  “Can you blame me?  Every time I said it I felt like I was walking into a floral themed S&M club!”

Carolina laughed.

“And with that charming image,” she said, “the story’s pretty much over.  That’s it, the great conspiracy; we’re a study group with a terrible sense of humor.  Nothing nefarious going on here.”

“Until you kidnapped me,” Wash muttered.  York grinned.

“Come on, man,” he said, throwing an arm around the underclassman’s shoulders.  “Your name is _David Washington_ , that’s practically destiny!  You’re one of us, whether you like it or not!”

“Just go with it,” Carolina had advised him, amusement settled in her voice like an old friend.  “There’s no way to escape it, now.  Believe me, I’ve tried.”

She might have been right.

“I just don’t see why they picked _me_ ,” Washington said a whole summer later as the car rattled up cracked pavement onto gravel and swerved for a sudden, sharp curve, pushing him against the door.

“Sounds to me like York was pretty clear,” CT said, her eyes never straying from the road as she shifted gears to navigate another hairpin turn.

“I meant why they asked me to move into the house,” Wash said.  He looked out the window into a sea of trees.  They’d turned on to the old, poorly paved road nearly ten minutes ago and lost civilization behind them, the only reminder the occasional glimpse of the city below as they trekked farther up into the mountains of the Blue Ridge.  “I mean, they’ve known you for longer.  They’ve known _everyone_ else longer.  South is North’s sister!  I still haven’t even met Florida!”

“South wouldn’t give up town to move into a house with her brother if you paid her,” CT snorted.  “But she can’t afford rent on an apartment by herself, that’s why we’re sharing.  And Florida… is Florida.  You’ll meet him eventually.”

“People keep saying that,” Wash muttered.  “I’m starting to think he’s an elaborate joke.”

Connie laughed.

“He might be,” she said, and when he turned to look at her he could see her eyes sparkling with mischief, “but if he is he hasn’t told us the punch line yet.”  She glanced at him, a soft smile ghosting across her face before she turned her eyes back to the drive.  “Seriously, Wash, stop worrying about it.  This isn’t elementary school kickball, nobody got picked last.  They asked you to come because they wanted to.  You guys are going to have a great time all alone up there in an isolated mountain retreat, and by the end of the semester if no one has killed each other out of cabin fever we’ll consider it a roaring success.”

Wash laughed a little, shaking his head as he watched the forest crawl past.

“We’ve been driving for a really long time,” he noted.

CT shrugged.

“Carolina said it was pretty far out,” she said.

“Are you sure we’re on the right road?” Wash asked.  “We don’t want to end up in the middle of nowhere because of a wrong turn.”

“Pretty sure,” CT said, but her brow was furrowed.  “The sign said Bottle Tree Lane, that’s the address she gave us, right?”

“I think so,” Wash said, frowning.  The flickering glints of sunlight on glass had disappeared from between the trees, their college town vanishing in the branches.  He flipped open his phone, scrolling through the contacts.  “Maybe we should call her, just to make sure.”

He paused. 

“Or maybe we’re stuck in a cell phone dead zone,” he sighed, putting it away.  “Great.”

“Try mine,” CT said, nodding to the sleek black rectangle resting in a cup holder.  “I think I have a different carrier.”

Wash snorted, picking it up.

“You just want to show off your new iPhone,” he said, fumbling with the touch screen.  After a few seconds of trial and error he made the call.  It was picked up on the other end with a flurry of static crackling and chopped syllables.

“—lo? Wa—?  Di—y…. nd the—okay?”

“What?”  Wash tried.  “Carolina?  The reception on this thing is shit, I can barely hear you.”

“Hey,” CT protested.  “Yours didn’t get a signal at all, remember?  It’s still an improvement.”

“Ye—,” the mangled response came through, “cell co—ge isn’t too gr—the house eith… did—u guys m—ke it?”

“Uh,” Wash said.  “We think we’re almost there?  You said Bottle Tree Lane, right?”

“Ye—h.  B—tle T… ne.  I’m i—own, though, y… need t—t York to let—u in.”

“What?”

“Yo—’s at… he’s wa—ing for y…  I’ll s—you la—”

“What?”

There was a short pause and another burst of static.

“—ck… you, Wash,” Carolina said, and the phone went dead.

“Uh,” Wash said, taking it away from his ear and giving it a puzzled look.  “I’m not sure but she either said good luck to me or to go fuck myself.  Or maybe York.  She definitely said something about York.”

“Cell reception’s that bad?  Jesus, we really are in the middle of nowhere.”

“I think she said we’re on the right road, though.”

“Definitely,” CT said, leaning forward as they finally broke the cover of trees, rolling up a gently sloping lawn.  The driveway curved around in front of the house and she drew the car up alongside several others, parking in the shadow of a huge oak.  “Looks like we made it.  Come on, let’s see what we drove halfway across the state for.”

“It wasn’t halfway across the state,” Wash said, getting out, “just halfway across… the…”

They stared.

The house was big.  It loomed over them, somehow dark even in the brightness of the afternoon.  The old wooden siding was painted a washed out gray, standing stark as a tombstone amidst the lush green of the surrounding hills.  It seemed to curl around the little courtyard, bare except for painted steps cascading down from the front door and into the gravel.  The west wing of the house was almost normal.  Bay windows at the front of the first floor became a small balcony on the second, a solid cast iron railing set around it. 

It was the east side that grabbed their attention.  No balconies here, the bay windows continued upward on both floors, rising in a tower surmounted by a steep, slanting roof crested in iron spikes that stood guard like the fence around a cemetery.  In the nearly vertical slates of the roof was nestled a great round window, broken and half boarded up.  The tall, narrow shape of the house furthered the impression of height, and the attic window seemed to peer down at them like a single, heavy-lidded eye.

The house crouched on the slope of the mountain, the sounds of the world hushed by the hills and the trees that stood around the clearing.  Even the forest seemed hesitant to intrude on its space, as if nature itself had drawn back in fear.  Trees crowded together along the borders of the lawn as though for safety, the few that crept closer looking stunted and twisted in the eaves of the old building.

Wash could almost feel it watching him.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.  “We’re moving into the _Psycho_ house.”

“ _You_ are,” CT corrected, still staring.

“You know, I said something similar,” said a voice.

Wash jumped and then laughed nervously when he realized it was just York leaning in the doorway, a teasing smirk on his face.

“You coming in?” he asked.  “You don’t want to get caught outside after dark.”

“What happens after dark?” Wash found himself asking at the same time that CT said “York, don’t be an ass.”

York grinned.

“Alright, alright,” he said.  “I get the message.  But seriously.  Welcome to the new State House.”

Even Wash had to roll his eyes at that one.

“You’re terrible,” he said, starting forward towards the ornate double doors as York disappeared inside.  Just as he reached the top of the steps he heard CT make a curious noise behind him.

“What?” he said, looking back at her and then around, half-expecting something to jump out at them.  Probably something planted by York.

CT blinked at him and then shrugged.

“Nothing,” she said.  She gestured down to their feet.  “Just… blue porch.”

It was.  The steps were slightly cracked and clearly faded, but each one was painted a light blue-green, flowing from the door like a static waterfall.

“That’s kind of weird,” Wash said, nonplussed.  Glancing up he realized that the roof of the little porch was painted blue as well.  It looked almost like another sky.

“Come on,” CT said, breaking his reverie.  She put a hand on his back and pushed him through the door.

The inside proved to be much more welcoming.

“Carolina grew up _here_?” CT said as she took in the grandeur of the foyer.

“Apparently,” said York, reappearing near the staircase.  “And she assures me that there are no monsters under the beds, no skeletons in the closets, and no ghouls in the attic.  Did you want the full tour or the quick version?”

“Better make it the quick version,” Wash said.  “I mostly just want to know where I’ll be sleeping.”

“Sure thing.  Living room’s over that way, my room just next to it,” he said, waving to Wash’s left.  “Kitchen, dining and Carolina’s room on the other side, can’t miss them.  As for upstairs—oh, wait.”

York stopped, grinning.

“Check this out,” he said, going up to the wooden paneling under the staircase.  Finding what looked like a knot in the wood he slipped a finger inside it and pulled.  With a light _click_ , the paneling came away from the wall, revealing a hidden door.

“Found it last night.  Basement,” he said, nodding at the stairs receding down into darkness.  “No mummified mothers down there, either, Wash.  I checked.  Just the laundry.”

“Ha ha,” Wash sighed.  “Can you please just show me my room?”

“Alright, no need to get huffy.”

They trooped up the stairs, York still playing the part of a helpful tour guide.

“Bathroom’s right across from the steps here.  Maine’s room is to the left, Wyoming’s is here on the right,” he told them as they walked past it.  “North’s on the other side over there in the southwest,” he added, waving across the chasm that made up the center of the house, “he’s got the master suite.  But you, Wash, are right… here.”

The balcony hallway dead ended into a door, which York opened with a flourish.

Or rather, he tried to.

“Huh,” York muttered, trying the doorknob again.  “I could’ve sworn Carolina said she unlocked all the doors.”

“Where is Carolina, anyway?” CT asked, wandering back down the hall as York tried the door again with no success.  She opened a door that they had passed by, revealing a dark, narrow closet, lined on one side with shelves.  “We tried calling her on the way up but the connection was terrible so we didn’t really catch what she said.”

“Yeah, our cell phones are going to be pretty useless up here, but there’s a land line in the living room,” York said as he peered through the keyhole.  “She went to town for groceries.  We were going to have a nice big welcome dinner now that everyone’s here.  Unfortunately she took the keys with her.”

“Wait, so I’m locked out of my own room?” Wash asked.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” York said.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat black case, opening it to reveal over a dozen long, thin tools.  “I’ve got this.”

“Oh here we go again,” CT said, rolling her eyes as York went to work with the lock picks.  “You might want to go back downstairs, Wash, we’re going to be here all day.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve been practicing all summer,” York retorted.  “These locks are old, it can’t be that hard.”

They watched him struggle for a few minutes before inferring that maybe it could.

“Aren’t you a Criminology major?” Wash asked while they waited.  “Isn’t this illegal or something?”

“It’s not illegal unless I do something illegal with them,” York responded, frustration seeping into his voice.  “Or if I charge you money for it.  Damn, this sucker’s a pain in the ass.  Ah-ha!”

With a faint clicking the door was finally unlocked and York turned the handle, trying to replicate his earlier fanfare with little success.

“Home sweet home, Mr. Washington,” he said with a bow.  Rolling his eyes, Wash walked inside and finally got a look at his new room.

It was on the second floor of the tower.  That was the first thing Wash realized, seeing the big bay windows.  The window seat offered a fantastic view of the front lawn and the forest beyond, spreading outward and down, the mountains peeking just over the treetops in the distance.  The room itself was spacious and sparsely furnished.  A bed was pushed up against one wall with a tiny end table, a desk on another near the closet door, and a small dresser completed the set.  The wood floor shone in the light streaming in from tall windows.

All in all it was a very nice room. It was certainly about a hundred times better than any dorm room Wash had ever seen.

“Okay, let’s get you unpacked and settled in,” CT said, smiling.  “I want to make it back home sometime before midnight.”

“Might want to leave now, then,” York snorted.  “It’s a hell of a commute.”

Wash followed them out, a tension he’d barely even noticed bleeding away as he listened to his friends banter.  There was nothing so intimidating about the house on the inside.  It was a little fancy, a little remote, but filled with good friends and great potential. 

As they reached the bottom of the stairs North wandered in from the kitchen, a glass of iced tea in his hands.

“Getting moved in?” he asked mildly.  “Well, welcome to the house, Wash.”

Wash smiled.

“Thanks,” he said.

It was going to be a good year.

 

*

 

Sunlight flooded in through Carolina’s open window, the morning chill chased away by the glow of the rising sun.  The late August night had been warm enough that she’d opened the room to the breeze, the rustle of the trees a quiet lullaby.  Now, in the dawn light, she stretched like a contented cat before rising to start the day.

She had always loved this room.  The languid warmth of sunrise draped around her like an embrace, staying with her even after she’d closed the door and ventured out into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” she said, surprised to see others up so early.  York was leaning against the counter, staring grimly into an empty mug while Wyoming sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar with a piece of toast.  The coffee maker dripped merrily on the counter behind them.

“Mm-hmm,” York murmured before blinking owlishly at Carolina as she took an orange from the fruit bowl.  “Oh.  Morning, ‘Lina.”

“What are you doing up so early?” she asked.

“Early classes this semester,” he said, yawning.  “Need to get up even earlier to make it on time.  You going for a run?”

“Thought I’d have a snack first,” she said, starting on the orange peel.

“Well, it’s good to see you up.”

“It is?” Carolina snorted.  “Why’s that?”

“Knock, knock.”

The two of them stopped, conversation derailed, and turned to peer at Wyoming.

“…who’s there?” York said eventually, giving in.

“Missouri,” Wyoming responded, picking idly at his toast.

“Missouri who?” York obliged.

“Missouri loves company.”

It was hard to tell, but Carolina was pretty sure that was a smirk under Wyoming’s ridiculous handlebar moustache.  York stared at their friend, probably coming to the same conclusion, before apparently deciding to ignore him.

“You seem pretty chipper,” he said to her.  Carolina nodded.

“Had a good night’s sleep,” she said.  “It’s nice to be home.”

“That’s right,” York said, more alert by the second, “you grew up here.  I bet you have a lot of great stories about this old place.”

Carolina shrugged, fingers digging into the orange with a little more force.

“Could be,” she said absently.

York gave her a thoughtful look.

“You know, Carolina,” he said suddenly, “you never really talk about yourself.  I’ve known you for three years and we’ve been dating for months, but sometimes I feel like I barely know you at all.”

“You know me just fine, York.”

“But I could know you better,” he said.  A sly smile began to creep across his face, the one that meant he’d latched onto an idea and would never let go.  “And I will.  I mean, here we are in your childhood home, isolated—”

“There are four other people here,” she interjected.

“It’s the perfect opportunity to really open up to each other.  I’ll go first; my favorite color is gold.”

She leveled him with a flat look.

“Okay,” he said, “I can see you’re going to need some prompting.  I’ll just ask a few basic questions.  Like… how long did you live here?”

“Until I was 13,” she answered, ripping the last of the orange peel away.

“Any siblings?”

“No.”

“Any pets?”

“No.”

“Any—”

“Knock, knock.”

York faltered and turned back to their third wheel with an exasperated look.  Carolina popped a slice of orange into her mouth to hide her smile.

“Who’s there?” he asked irritably.

“Cole.”

York tried to stare him down but was met with only a placid gaze and a bushy moustache.  He relented.

“Cole who?”

“Cole-umbian coffee is my favorite,” said Wyoming with a pointed look at the coffee maker.  York sighed.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered, getting another mug down from the cabinets and pouring the coffee.  He slid one of the mugs over and took a large swig from the other, wincing as it no doubt burned his mouth.  “Should you even be drinking coffee?  I thought tea was the staple in English breakfasts.  In fact I’m pretty sure there’s a tea _called_ English Breakfast.”

“The way you treat tea in this country is an abomination,” Wyoming sniffed.  He took a delicate sip of his coffee and grimaced.  “Even this bitter concoction is better than that disgusting sugar slop.”

“You will pry sweet tea from my cold dead hands,” Carolina chuckled.  “How’s your thesis going, Wyoming?”

“Oh, plodding along,” he answered.  “Getting one’s doctorate isn’t meant to be easy.  I believe the isolation might actually be helping.  Not much to do for procrastination, you know.  Research is going quite well.  I was going to head down to the library later today for some books.”

“That’s great,” she said sincerely.  Finishing her orange she tossed the peel in the trash.  “Well,” she said, heading for the front door, her feet already itching to run, “I’m off.  See you later, guys.  Don’t be late for class, York.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he replied, somewhat sourly.  “See you later, Carolina.”

She waved without looking back, and was out the door and down the steps in seconds.  It was her favorite part of the morning.  The sun warmed her back as she gathered speed, feet hitting the gravel with a satisfying crunch.  She headed down the mountainside, aiming for where the driveway met the road, and if she couldn’t make it in good time she would simply have a goal for tomorrow.  Setting the house at her back, she was off.

It was time to run.

 

*

 

If Wash had to read one more sentence about the founding fathers he was going to scream.

The others hadn’t been kidding when they’d told him that Intro to American History was focused on the workload.  The whole class was a trial.  There was so much reading to be done, and research, and papers both small and large, and they’d barely even started.  Already he’d had to suffer through being asked if he was related to George Washington by at least six of his classmates.  After two weeks of class he was still shocked at just how boring the reading was.  They were supposed to be studying revolution, war, and civil unrest, and yet all they talked about was tax codes.  It had to be the driest textbook ever.  Of all time.  And that was saying a lot.

Wash snapped the book shut and resisted the urge to throw it out the open window.  He tossed it down beside him on the window seat instead and took a moment to rub at his eyes.

The stress of a new semester was probably getting to him.  He hadn’t been sleeping well, lately.  Every day he woke up feeling slightly less rested, and it was starting to affect his studying.  The material definitely wasn’t helping.  He had a hundred pages to read and he couldn’t get past two before he’d feel his eyes drooping shut.  He’d jerk awake only to reread the same paragraph without processing a single word on the page before drifting off again.

Maybe if he got a soda and a snack he’d be able to keep himself awake long enough to finish the assignment.  It wasn’t due the next day, so he still had time, but living in a house full of overachievers had managed to ramp up an almost unconscious sense of competition in him.  There was nothing quite like the silent judgment in Carolina’s face when she heard you hadn’t done your homework. 

“Snack time,” he muttered to himself, getting up.

Wandering into the hall he already felt more optimistic.  A short break would be good for him, a chance to regroup and stop the words on the page from swimming in his tired mind.  As he reached the stairs, however, he heard a door slam and turned to see Maine coming out of his room.  He was running a hand over his shaved head, looking like he wished he had hair so he could tear it out. 

“You alright?” Wash asked.

Maine grunted.

The man was a giant, with all the muscle and presence you might expect from a player on a college football team.  He had a solidness to him that reminded Wash of a brick wall.  People could throw themselves against him and he wouldn’t budge a single inch, just stand there, implacable, waiting for the next assault.  Wash had seen it happen.

He was looking pretty worn right now, though.

“Homework troubles?” Wash guessed.

After a second of silence he nodded, heaving a frustrated, almost defeated sigh.

Maine was also man of few words.  Before he’d met the States he’d had a hard time making friends; most of the campus was far too intimidated to even try to talk to him.  If they saw him now, frustrated and looking ready to rip a bear in half, they’d probably run screaming.

Wash looked down the stairs, biting his lip.

“I’m not exactly breezing through mine either,” he admitted.  “But… we’ve got a couple of hours left in the day.  Want to take a movie break?” he suggested.  “I’ve got _Snakes on a Plane._ ”

Maine shrugged.

“Sure,” he muttered.  “Popcorn?”

“Of course,” Wash replied, grinning.  Maine’s returning smile was small and tired, but Wash still counted it as a victory.

Homework could definitely wait, he considered as they made their way downstairs.  Sometimes you just needed a little fun to drive away the stress.

 

 

 

York tilted his chair back and looked at the ceiling of his room. 

“I have had it with these motherfucking snakes,” he murmured along, “on this motherfucking plane.”

He grimaced.  It wasn’t exactly easy to concentrate on his history of law assignment when all he could hear was Samuel L. Jackson complaining about the quality of his air travel.  The downside of having to sleep and work next to the living room was pretty obvious at this point.  He wasn’t even entirely sure who was watching the movie, but he thought it might be Wash.  The kid probably needed the break, he’d been looking a little rough around the edges lately.

York wasn’t sure if it was the noise or just the knowledge that there were people on the other side of the wall, but as he sat in his room he felt a prickle under his skin, an instinct he didn’t want to look at too closely.  Even as he tried to ignore it, as the movie ended and the viewers trooped upstairs, as the living room descended into silence, he couldn’t stop himself from looking over his shoulder.  A hush fell over his bedroom, a stillness he had grown almost used to in the past two weeks of living there.  This far into the mountains the only sound at night was the quiet symphony of nature.  Crickets sang softly outside his window, the wind gusted through the trees by the house, and inside the old walls the loudest sound was his own breathing and the _shhhsh_ of his highlighters across the page as he tried again to continue his work.

Still his skin prickled.  It was that distinct sensation people got sometimes in a lonely place for no logical reason.  It was the kind of feeling that even proof couldn’t soothe.

It felt like being watched.

He would have just ignored it.  He could have, if it had been the first time.  In fact he had been trying to ignore it for days, but every time he sat down to study that prickle was back, like the weight of a gaze just over his shoulder. 

“Jesus Christ,” he murmured, rolling his eyes at his own dramatics.  He looked behind him once again, unable to stop himself, and huffed a laugh when he saw that the room hadn’t changed at all since the last time he’d looked.  Turning back around, he twirled his highlighter in his fingers, trying to get back to work.  Darkness had fallen outside, and he was forced to switch on the lamp on top of his desk.  Like most of the furniture in the house, the desk had been a leftover from Carolina’s childhood, presumably having served the Director while he worked.  It was an old thing, an antique secretary desk with a fold out desktop that revealed several pigeon holes and even more tiny locked drawers.  The lamp was old, too, an old-fashioned brass thing with a dangling chain and a green glass shade.  It reminded him of old-timey bankers, and when he turned it on the room was washed in a light green glow.

York turned again and tried to peer out the window into the darkness.  All he could see was himself, reflected in the glass, sitting alone in an empty room.  There was no one else there.

There never was.

York went back to work.  He only needed to finish this assignment and he’d be done for the night.  Invariably as soon as he was finished studying that persistent feeling of eyes on his back would fade.  It was just more evidence that he was being paranoid.

It was late when he finished, and York had an early morning to look forward to.  He yawned as he closed up the desk and readied himself for bed.  Maybe if he was lucky he’d catch Carolina before her daily run.  It was the one silver lining of his unpleasantly early schedule.

York turned out the light and slipped under the covers, and if the glow of the lamp seemed to take just a moment too long to die away, he determinedly didn’t notice.

 

*

 

On the evening of the thirty-first of August, the doorbell rang.

Wash actually jumped, nearly dropping his textbook on the living room sofa.  He hadn’t even known they had a doorbell.  North glanced up from his own reading by the windows and raised an eyebrow.

“You expecting company?” he asked.

Wash shook his head.  No one he knew was particularly interested in making the trek out just to see him.  In fact, almost everyone he considered a friend was already living in the house.  Except for CT, of course, but she liked to call ahead.

“Well, then, you’d better go see who it is.”

“Oh.  Uh, okay,” Wash said.

He opened the door to find a stranger.

“Can I… help you?” he said, wondering how a person could get so lost as to end up on their doorstep.  Then he wondered why a lost person would ever knock on the door of a house that looked like theirs.

"You already have, my friend," the man said with a gentle smile.  "Just meeting you here has already brightened my day."

"Uh..." Wash said, totally baffled.  "You're... welcome?"

"I sure am," the man chuckled.  "What do you say we make this a proper introduction and bring it in for a big ole hug?"

"I—uh, what?" Wash said, inching backwards.  Too late it occurred to him that the smarter move would have been to close the door in the stranger's face, but by the time he thought of it the man was already in the foyer, arms outstretched.  "Wait—"

"Florida?"

Wash turned around to find that North had come into the foyer, a bemused look on his face.  Then he registered what his friend had said.

"Wait, what?" Wash said, looking back at the stranger, who simply continued to smile in a way that was just a little too intimate.  "You're Florida?"

"That's right."

"Oh," Wash said awkwardly.  He had a sudden flash of insight as to why the others had always been completely unable to describe their mysterious friend.  "I'm—"

"Our dear friend Washington," Florida said warmly.  "And can I say that I am just pleased as punch to be able to finally meet you."

"Sure, uh.  Me too?"

"What brings you here, Florida?" North asked.

"It's funny you should ask that, North," Florida started.

"Not really," Wash murmured, still a little thrown by the whole encounter.  Florida didn't appear to have heard him.

"I was having the loveliest conversation the other day with your delightful sister," he continued.  Wash blinked.  He didn't know South all that well but 'delightful' was not a word he had ever heard used to describe her.  "And we realized that it's been over two weeks since you've moved into this lovely old house and we have yet to throw you a housewarming party!"

"I thought it was the people who moved who were supposed to throw housewarming parties," North said.

"Now, now," Florida responded, "it would be awfully rude of us to demand that you throw us a party.”

"You're absolutely right," North said, voice bland.

"So we thought we'd come up for a nice little Friday night get-together," Florida said, still smiling.  "Strengthening old bonds, making new ones," he nodded to Wash, "and just having a lovely time."

"Wait, 'we'?" said Wash.

"Let's get this party started!" crowed South, kicking the door so hard it rebounded and would have smacked her if she hadn't kicked it again.

"That door was already open," North said.  South snorted, pushing a case of beer into his arms and shoving a bottle of vodka at Wash.  CT wandered in behind her, looking amused and totally unrepentant.  She was carrying a large cooler which on closer inspection turned out to be full of more beer and various kinds of hard liquor.

"Is that all you have to say to the wonderful people who just brought you a shit-ton of booze?" South asked.

"You know I hate this brand," North replied, eyeing the beer.  "And anyway, aren't guests supposed to bring _food_ to a housewarming party?"

"You've been living here for half a month and you don't have food?" South said.  "Christ, get it together, bro."

"We don't have party food," said North, rolling his eyes.  "But feel free to help yourself to the broccoli in the fridge."

"Or we could just call Carolina and see if she's willing to pick something up on her way home," CT pointed out.  "She's still in town, right?"

"How do you even know that?" Wash wondered.

"I'm a journalist, Wash," she sniffed.  "Knowing things is my business."

"She memorized everyone’s schedules because we'd never see you jackasses otherwise," South said, digging into the cooler and coming up with a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.  “You all hide up here in your stupid castle and never come out except for classes.”

"Or that."           

“So we are here to remind you idiots what fun looks like,” South announced.  “It is now officially the weekend and it is time to get _fucked up_!”

“What the buggering hell is all that racket?”

Wyoming appeared at the top of the stairs, glaring at them over the banister.

"Good timing, my friend!" Florida called up to him while South and CT busied themselves with taking the alcohol to the dining room table.  "Would you like to join us for a quick drink in celebration?"

"I'm afraid I have to decline, old chap," Wyoming said sourly.  "Some of us are quite busy and have work to do."

"Of course, how silly of me," said Florida.  He reached into his jacket, pulling out a small dark bottle and holding it up.  "Well, if at any point you decide you need a break, I'd be glad to share this delicious bottle of sherry with you."

Wyoming squinted at him.

"I suppose one drink wouldn't hurt," he said slowly.

“Lovely.”

Watching all of this chaos unfold, Wash turned to North, who was still standing in the hallway with an expression that was two parts exasperated and three parts amused.

“There is absolutely no stopping this, is there?” he asked.

North chuckled.

“I’m afraid not,” he said.  He handed Wash the case of beer and patted him on the shoulder.  “I’ll call Carolina and give her a heads up.  You go have fun.”

North walked back to the living room, leaving Wash alone in the foyer.  With a shrug he walked in to the dining room where the others had congregated.  Almost immediately Maine wandered out of the kitchen holding a sandwich, which was promptly lifted from his hands and swapped with a bottle of tequila.

“So what are we drinking?” Wash asked CT, trying not to laugh at the puzzled expression on Maine’s face.

“What _aren’t_ we drinking?” South answered for her with a vicious smirk.

It was going to be that kind of night.  Wash grinned.

 

 

 

By the time Carolina and York made it back to the house the sun had set and the little party was in full swing.

For reasons that were beyond her, York had declared that afternoon that he was going to stay after his classes to watch her soccer practice.  Once it was over they’d decided to go out for dinner.  They were eating dessert when North called, and York had nearly skipped the bill in his haste to leave.

“Carolina,” he’d said, eyes sparkling, “ _Florida’s there_.”

He had a point.  Any party that Florida attended would almost certainly get out of hand, although no one had yet been able to prove it was in any way his fault.  He would just be there, smiling away while chaos unfolded around him.  Carolina had conceded that they might want to get back as quickly as they could, although they ended up making a few stops.

“Food’s here!” York called as they entered the house, dumping bags of chips, a pizza, and a large box of Krispy Kreme donuts on the coffee table.  “Anyone want to trade for a beer?”

“Out of the way, York!” South yelled, trying to see around him to the video game she was playing with Wash.

“Drinks are in the dining room,” CT supplied, watching the game intently.

“What kind?” Carolina asked as York disappeared behind her.

“All kinds,” Wash said, grinning a little sloppily. 

Carolina made a mental note to make sure he got some water before he went to bed.  In fact, she thought, looking around, it might be a good idea to make sure everyone had some water and, while they were at it, mysteriously lost their car keys.

Then York came back in, placing a glass of something amber colored into her hands, and threw himself onto the couch.  He patted the seat next to him in what he probably thought was a coy way, and grinned when she sat down, rolling her eyes.

“What are we playing?” he asked, and as CT and Wash launched into an explanation of their game, Carolina took a sip of her drink.  It wasn’t bad.

Three hours later it still wasn’t bad but there was significantly less of it.

The food was all gone except for a few stray chips that were being steadily ground into the floor.  Fortunately, nothing much had been broken, although there had been a few close calls.  The night was finally calming down, the noise in the living room tapering off enough to hear the symphony of crickets just outside.  She and York had ended up on the loveseat by the bay windows, perfect for watching the shenanigans of the rest of the room.

Wash had fallen asleep on the couch cradling an empty bottle of tequila, which was a little surprising considering that Carolina was sure he hadn’t been drinking it.  Maine, South, and CT were playing some sort of improvised version of beer pong on the coffee table using shot glasses and a paper football while North added less than helpful commentary.  He actually looked almost sober, a slight list to his posture the only outward sign that he was nearly as drunk as the rest of them. 

Wyoming was gone, having stumbled up the stairs about an hour ago, bowing out with a knock knock joke that had been entirely incomprehensible.  Florida had vanished as well, although she didn’t know when, or where to, or how, or even if she’d actually seen him drink anything all night.  That wasn’t entirely unusual, either.  He’d show up again eventually.

Carolina sat back with a smile, basking in the warmth of an evening of good company.

“Hey, Carolina?”

“Hmm?”

York shifted next to her, the arm around her shoulder squeezing gently in a sideways hug.  He was closer than the space on the loveseat required, pressed against her like he was afraid she’d vanish if he lost contact.  Carolina didn’t mind; he’d made a valiant attempt to catch up with the others in their drunkenness before he’d decided he would rather cozy up to her, and even in her own barely-tipsy mind their shared body heat was absolutely wonderful.

“You don’t…” he started, his hand weaving into the long red hair that fell across her shoulder.  “You don’t have to answer, y’know?”

Carolina sighed.

“York…”

“No, no,” he said quietly.  “You don’t have to answer.  I just… I have to ask, you know?”

He’d been doing a lot of asking.  It wasn’t every day, it wasn’t enough for her to get truly upset over it, but every so often he’d try another round of twenty questions.  She wasn’t sure why he even cared what her favorite food was when she was six, or the name of her most beloved stuffed animal.  All she knew was that whenever he asked she felt an itching inside of her, a crawling, aching sensation that made her want to run.  It was a pointless exercise, anyway.  She wasn’t the same person as that six year old girl.  She didn’t know what York thought he could gain by knowing that child better.

Of course, she had never asked him.  Maybe if she did she could persuade him to drop the subject. 

“Why do you have to ask, York?” she tried, finally giving in.

“Because you’ll be gone soon.”

Despite the warmth of the evening, the comfort of her home and her friends, Carolina felt a chill go down her spine.

“What?” she asked, twisting to look at him.  His expression was almost painfully sincere, his blue eyes a little glassy from the alcohol but still focused, and almost wistful.

“It’s our senior year,” he said.  “And after that… everyone’s gonna be gone.  You’re gonna go off and… and join the army or something…”

“Marines,” she corrected automatically.  He nodded sadly.

“Marines,” he repeated.  “You’ll be off savin’ the world, and I’ll be at the police academy, and everybody else’ll be… be gone, too.”

“York…”

“And I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna be fifty and old and tryin’ to remember and think ‘who was that one girl I dated in college?  She played soccer and had red hair’ and that’s _it_ , that’s _all_.”

He pushed closer again, setting his chin on her shoulder, his embrace just shy of too tight.

“Don’t wanna forget you,” he mumbled.  “Don’t wanna lose you.”

Carolina closed her eyes, thinking of a long blonde ponytail under a utility cap, empty bottles of whisky in the study, and the words “don’t say goodbye.”

“Oh, York,” she sighed, hugging him back.  Eventually he dozed off, and she placed a kiss on the top of his head before setting her cheek against his hair.

She knew she couldn’t promise him anything, but God, she wanted to.

 

 

 

“You’re a terrible shot when you’re drunk,” North observed, watching the tiny paper football soar over the target and land in CT’s lap. 

“Oh yeah?” South growled.  “Well why don’… why don’t _you_ do it then, asshole?”

CT laughed and flicked the little improvised ball at him.

“Go ahead,” she said. 

He picked it up, dipping it in the single glass of water on the table to rinse it off and rubbing his fingers against the soggy wax paper.  It had been CT’s idea, since regular paper would fall apart in the alcohol and they didn’t have any ping pong balls.  The shot glasses were all on South, who had declared that beer was boring and then poured out a mixed selection of tequila, whisky, and gin, headed by a single shot of vodka at the tip of the pyramid.

North eyed the vodka, took a breath, and flicked the little football.  It arced over the coffee table, landing cleanly in the glass with barely a splash.  He smirked.

CT nearly fell off her chair laughing, and even Maine started chuckling in a low rumble like thunder.

“You _fucker_ ,” South complained, gaping.  “Show’s… show-off.”

Slowly, she appeared to realize that North had scored her a point.

“Drink!” she demanded, pointing at CT.

“Oh no,” CT responded, sliding the shot of vodka across the table.  “You challenged North.  You lost.  _You_ drink.”

South glared at her, but accepted the drink, taking a few seconds to fish out the football before slamming it back and then dropping the glass on the table.  She missed, the shot glass glancing off the edge and landing on the floor.  They were lucky it didn’t break, North thought fuzzily.  None of them were in any condition to be cleaning up shards of glass.

“A’right,” South said, ignoring it.  “That mean’s iss still _my_ turn.”

She held up the football, probably aiming for one of the whisky shots if North knew his sister, but he could already tell she was about to hit Maine in the eye.  Instead of letting this tragedy continue, North plucked it out of her fingers.

“I think maybe you should go to bed,” he said, rising.  “Before we all get,” he stumbled a little before catching himself on the arm of the sofa, “alcohol poisoning.”

South glared at him.

“’m not _that_ wasted,” she mumbled.  Then she looked around in drunken confusion.  “An’ I can’t go t’bed.  Bed’s not _here_.”

“You can sleep in my room,” North said, hauling her off the floor from her seat by the coffee table.  They lurched dramatically to the side before he managed to catch his balance for the both of them.  He turned to the others, who were still laughing quietly.  “CT, you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking behind her to where Carolina was trying to rouse York.  “Loveseat’ll be open soon.  It’s fine.”

“Goodnight, then,” North said.  He wobbled a little as he hauled his complaining sister towards the stairs.

“’m not drunk,” South was saying.

“You’re very drunk.”

“’m not,” she insisted.  “’m not drunk.  _You’re_ drunk.”

“We both are,” he allowed.

He wasn’t entirely sure how they even made it up the stairs in one piece, but they must have because the next thing he knew they were standing in front of his bedroom door.  Shouldering the door open, he managed to stumble across the room before they both landed sprawling on his huge king-sized bed.  It was honestly a little too big for just him, but it was free furniture and he couldn’t complain.  Hoisting his sister further up on the bed, he climbed unsteadily back to his feet.

“Time for bed, South,” he said.  When she didn’t answer, he peered at her, abruptly realizing that he hadn’t heard her mumbled invectives in quite some time.  “South?”

He was answered with a sticky-sounding snore.

“Great,” he sighed.  He tried to think for a moment before shrugging and starting to untie her shoes.  Once he was finished he removed her jacket and dragged her as far to one side as he could without dropping her off the bed.  Folding back the blankets on the other side as far as they would go, he attempted to roll her onto the sheets.  It took a few tries, but eventually he was successful.  He tucked her in and spread the thin blanket back over her still snoring form.

She didn’t seem to have noticed a thing.

North frowned.  She really should drink some water before going to sleep, but it looked like waking her up would be a lost cause.  Still, he might as well have something for her when she woke up.  He nodded to himself and made his way in a slightly crooked fashion to the bathroom, catching himself on the bannister before he fell.  Soon he was back with a nearly full glass of water, only a few drops spilled, setting it carefully on the nightstand next to South’s head.

“Sleep tight, little sister,” he murmured.

As he made his way around the bed, he passed by the mirror over his dresser.  In his tired, muddled state, he almost didn’t notice it at all.  He almost didn’t see it.

North stopped, blinking in confusion, and then turned.  There was nothing behind him, just his sister, still sleeping on the bed, and the otherwise empty room.  He turned back to the mirror, searching the glass, unsure he’d seen anything.  Maybe it was his pickled brain playing tricks on him.

It was still there.  A small pale face, peeking out from the cracked closet door, was reflected in the mirror.

More confused than anything else, North looked behind him once more. 

There was nothing there, and when he turned back again the mirror was empty as well.

He stared for a long moment, a shiver racing through him, before continuing on his way to the bed.  Settling down on top of the covers, he glanced around the room one last time.

“Well,” he said to no one.  “Goodnight.”

There was no response expect for his sister’s quiet snores.  North rolled over and closed his eyes.

Sleep was a long time coming.

 

*

 

September first dawned warm, beautiful, and far too bright.  Saturday or not, York found that his new sleep schedule woke him up with the sun.  He mumbled a curse and tried to stick his head under the pillow, but the movement only made him aware of his hangover, the headache hitting him right behind the eyes with little mercy.  It wasn’t the worst he’d had, really.  He hadn’t been all that drunk the night before, although he was starting to get the feeling he’d gotten a little maudlin before he drifted off.

He groaned.  Things had definitely been said.  Carolina probably thought he was an idiot.

With that thought there was no way he was getting back to sleep.  York rolled over, grateful that his room was on the west side of the house and therefore not full of the stabbing rays of sunrise.  Sitting up slowly, he noticed that his desk had been left open, a tall glass of water placed on it next to some sort of painkillers.  That was probably a good sign.  He hadn’t offended her enough for her to leave him to the mercy of his hangover, at any rate.

York took the pills and downed half the water, picking up the note that had been placed under the glass.

 _“Don’t forget breakfast_ ” was all it said, and York snorted.  Forgetting to eat wasn’t going to be his problem so much as keeping it down.  Still, forgoing his usual cup of morning coffee would probably do more harm than good.  He didn’t want caffeine withdrawal on top of everything else.

Heading out, York shut the door to his room just a little too hard, wincing at the noise.  From the living room sofa he heard a soft, stilted groan.  Wash was lying there, still clutching an empty bottle, and York almost laughed.  For a brief second he considered dropping something loud on the floor by his head, but it would probably be shooting himself in the foot.  Besides, the poor kid needed his sleep.  Instead, he went back to his room for a marker and settled for drawing a moustache on his friend.  It wasn’t quite as majestic as Wyoming’s but it definitely had a respectable curl.

CT, still asleep on the loveseat, didn’t even stir.

When he finally made it to the kitchen, North was already there with a huge plate of toast, pulling a fresh pot away from the coffee maker.

“You’re up early,” York said, surprised.  North grimaced.

“South kicks,” he said.  He poured himself a cup of coffee, then one for York, sliding it across the breakfast bar.  “Toast?”

“Sure,” York said, accepting a slice.  It was plain and very dry, but still warm.  Perfect.

“Carolina’s out running,” North said, taking a bite of his own piece.  “She should be back soon.”

York groaned.  He dropped his head down on the countertop and then immediately regretted the action. 

“Ow,” he said flatly.

“Trouble in paradise?” North asked wryly.

York sighed, rubbing at his temple.

“Just… do you ever do something but you don’t tell anyone why you’re doing it because it sounds pathetic and needy, but then maybe you get a little drunk and you’re saying more than you meant to and suddenly it’s all gone wrong?  No… not wrong…”

“Complicated,” North supplied.

“Yeah.  Complicated.”

North squinted at him.

“Is this about those interrogations you’ve been throwing at Carolina?”

“They’re not _interrogations_ ,” York protested.  “I want to get to know her better, that’s all!  I feel like all we ever talk about is school and sports, but she’s smart and interesting and she’s got… I don’t know, hidden depths.”

“Sure,” North allowed.  “But if she doesn’t want to talk about them, why is it any of your business what’s in those depths?”

“What has depth?” Wash asked through a yawn as he plodded into the kitchen.  North looked at the new addition to his face that York had been so kind as to give him and raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Wash looked at them quizzically and York thought fast.  North was one thing but there was no way he was letting this story spread any further.

“The… swimming hole I found out in the woods the other day,” he said, and Wash wasn’t quite awake enough to notice that he didn’t sound very confident in his answer.  “We were just talking about going out there before the weather turned too cold, but we’re not sure how deep it is.”

“A swimming hole?” Wash asked, brightening up.  “What, like a pond?”

“With a little waterfall and everything,” York fabricated.  He glanced at North, noticing that while he wasn’t backing him up, he also hadn’t ratted York out yet, instead employing that serene look he sometimes got that could probably win him every hand of poker he ever played.

“Where is it?”

“Out in the woods,” York said.  “About a mile away if you head straight west from the garden.  You should really go check it out.  Right now.”

Wash frowned at him.

“Maybe later,” he said.  He crossed the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.  “I think I’m going to go back to sleep.  On a real bed this time.”

“Should we bring you a bottle to cuddle with?” York asked, unable to stop himself.

“Yeah, no thanks,” Wash grumbled, running a hand over his face and consequently his brand new Snidely Whiplash moustache, lightly smearing the ink.  “That’s okay.”

“You go get some rest, Wash,” North said.  “We’ll talk to you later.”

“Thanks, North.”

And with that, Wash was finally gone.

“Thought he’d never leave,” York mumbled.

North gave him an unimpressed look, tapping at his own face pointedly.

“What?” York said.  “You thought it was funny, too, don’t lie.”

North shook his head, but York saw him smiling.

They sat in companionable silence, eating their toast.  The painkillers were finally kicking in, or maybe the coffee and carbs were helping, because York was starting to feel a little better.  Physically, anyway.  Emotionally he was still pretty fraught.

“Seriously, North,” he said, his brain failing to supply a solution even though his headache was almost gone.  “What should I do?”

“Why should you do anything?” North said. 

York frowned.

“What is that, philosophy?” he complained.  “I hadn’t pegged you for a nihilist.”

“Look, I don’t know exactly what you said to her but I can guess,” North said.  He raised a hand to stop York in mid-protest.  “Because I know you, York, and you’re not all that subtle.  It seems to me like the ball is in her court now.  Maybe you should let her take a swing at it before you charge in trying to fix things.”

“She does have pretty good aim,” York said.

“That’s the spirit.”

“So you don’t think I’ve completely torpedoed our relationship?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” North replied mildly.  “I just don’t think you can do damage control until you know what the damage is.”

“Great.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Not long after that, South stumbled in, clutching her head.

“You guys need to get that staircase fixed,” she declared.  “It’s wobbly.”

“Pretty sure that’s not the staircase,” said North.  “Morning, South.”

South ignored him, eyeing their bland breakfast with distaste.

“What the hell is that?” she asked.  “Are you guys sitting around eating _toast_?  Are you the most boring people on the planet?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” York asked.

“Christ,” she muttered.  She made her way into the kitchen proper and began rummaging in the fridge.  “If you’re not going to make a real breakfast then I’ll fucking do it.”

“Maybe you should drink some water first,” North suggested.

“I’ll drink water when I’m dead.”

“What does that even mean?” York wondered.  “Are we talking a sea burial, or…?”

“Oh, shut the hell up, York,” South said.  She finally found eggs and bacon in the fridge and set them on the counter.  She turned on the eye of the gas stove, fire blossoming like a large orange flower, and then began rummaging in the cupboards.  “Where’s the frying pan?”

“You are going to burn the house down,” North said with a sigh.  He turned the stove off and tucked the food back into the fridge over her protests.  “Come on, I’ll take you home and we can get you a real breakfast on the way.”

“I can drive myself home,” South grumbled.  “And what about CT?  We only brought one car.”

“We’ll take my car.  That way I won’t be stranded in town and CT can drive herself home when she wakes up.  She’ll probably be in a better condition to do it anyway.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” South insisted, but she let North guide her gently out of the room.

“And you’ll be even better after you’ve had some waffles.”

“Fuck waffles,” South said as he pushed her out the door, “give me _steak_.”

York chuckled as he watched them go.  The Dakotas were always an adventure together.  South had been declaring her independence from twinhood for as long as he’d known her, but everyone knew how much they relied on each other.  South needed North to curb her enthusiasm and rein in her wilder impulses.  North needed South to add spice to his life and, possibly, because he enjoyed looking out for others, being needed.  South might not like it, but North was good at taking care of people.  He had an infuriating tendency to be right about almost everything, and he knew it.

York put his head back on the counter and sighed.  North was probably right about his problem, too.  The only real option was to face the music.

 

 

 

Carolina ran.

Gravel scattered under her feet and the impact of her footsteps reverberated through her, echoing her heartbeat.  Her hair streamed out behind her like a banner, a battle flag blood red and ready for a fight.  Around her the forest stirred in the early morning, birds taking flight as she rushed past them, squirrels scurrying up trees with a flurry of skittering claws and chatter.  On one side of the gravel driveway was a long line of rosebay rhododendrons.  In the spring they would be beautiful, clusters of flowers the lightest pink imaginable bursting forth along the road like tiny static fireworks.  Even now, in the last days of summer, the sight of their deep green leaves filled her with a sense of anticipation.  She had always loved racing past the flowers as a girl, the deep-seated urge to _move_ satisfied in the most beautiful way she could think of.

She had always loved to run.  As a child the desire had left her antsy, a little girl of seven or eight tucked away in a huge old house, alone but for her mind and her body.  Other children would have explored or imagined, but not Carolina.  Carolina ran.  She ran until she was breathless and exhausted.  She ran until she was faster than her own thoughts, until she could outrun anything that she chased.

Carolina ran.  The loose gravel of the driveway was a hazard she was used to by now, and it barely slowed her.  She made it back to the house in good time, waving at North’s car as he drove past, South sitting sullenly in the passenger seat.  Looking at her watch, she noted with satisfaction that she had run down the lane to where it met the road and back in her fastest time yet.

Wiping sweat off her brow she pushed through the front door and made her way to the kitchen.  She was only a little surprised to find York there, apparently asleep with his head on the breakfast bar next to a half-eaten plate of toast.  Shaking her head with an exasperated huff, she rummaged in the fridge for a few minutes before locating the ingredients for a decent omelet.  Putting a pan on the burner, she went to work.

It was a gorgeous day with a wonderful start, and as she began cooking Carolina found herself humming.  The song was old, its origins lost to time, the lyrics changed and rearranged and changed again until so many versions existed that no one could say which was correct or first.  For Carolina it meant warmth and home, safety and comfort.

York woke up halfway through the second verse.

“That’s pretty,” he said, stretching with a yawn.  “What is it?”

Carolina hesitated, the notes dying in her throat.  She was about to tell him it was nothing important, but abruptly she thought of an embrace that was just a little too tight and a drunken confession that sounded lost and worried.

She could make him no promises, but then, a promise wasn’t what he had asked for, was it? 

“It’s a lullaby,” she said instead.  She focused on the eggs in the pan, making sure they didn’t overcook or fall apart.  “Well,” she corrected herself, "not a lullaby, exactly.  It’s an old timey song that… that my mother used to sing to me when I was small.”

York probably noticed her falter, but he knew better than to point it out.

“What’s the song about?”

She hesitated again for half a second before taking a deep breath and restarting the second verse.

“ _I wish my breast was made of glass, wherein you might behold_ ,” she sang, just a little off-key, her voice unsure and untrained.  “ _Upon my heart your name lies o’er in letters made of gold_.  _In letters made of gold my dove, believe me when I say_ ,” she continued on stronger, “ _You are someone I’ll always love until my dying day_.”

Cutting the finished omelet in half with her spatula she lifted the sections from the pan and onto a waiting plate.  Grabbing a couple of forks and turning, she set the plate down between them on the breakfast bar.  York was staring at her, his jaw slightly dropped.  She winced.

“I’m not much of a singer,” she admitted.  “I’m afraid I inherited my father’s voice.”

“It was beautiful,” he said sincerely.  “Your mother used to sing that to you?”

“I think my father played it for her once before she went to boot camp and she just always liked it after that.”

 Carolina picked at her half of the omelet.  York followed suit, taking a bite.  The kitchen was warm and bright, the early morning sun streaming through the windows and the French doors from the dining room, casting mottled shadows along the walls.  She looked at them instead of York as she continued. 

“She would sing it to me when she was home.  It’s about… love and devotion, I guess.  Missing the people you care about when they’re gone and waiting for them to come back.  She’d sing it to me the night before she left again, instead of saying goodbye.  She always… she hated saying goodbye.”

In the quiet morning her voice seemed to be the only sound, soft and pensive, carried through the air on the wings of old memories.  Carolina smiled a little wistfully. 

“She always said that if you don’t say goodbye you’re not really gone,” she murmured.  “You’re just… not here right now.”

“She was a soldier?” York asked, having noticed the past tense.

“A marine,” she said. 

“Oh.”

There was a myriad of things York could have said to that, but for once he kept quiet.  They finished their breakfast in the cozy glow of the morning light, both lost in thought.  A breeze must have picked up outside, the branches and leaves on the trees moving with the wind and the dappled shadows moving with them in a way that looked almost alive.  Carolina watched them as York pushed the plate away with a satisfied sound.

“Thanks for making breakfast,” he said, and when she turned to look at him he was smiling.  He looked like he wanted to say more, but settled for simply adding “I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, knowing he probably wasn’t talking about her subpar cooking.

She took the empty plate and brought it to the sink to be washed later.  As she walked back she thought she saw, from the corner of her eye, an odd shadow at the edge of the room.  She wasn’t even sure why it caught her attention.  Maybe it was a shade darker than the others, or maybe it didn’t flicker quite the way it should, almost static while the light moved around it.  She turned to get a better look at it, but as she did the wind kicked up again, almost strong enough to rattle the windows.

The trees danced in the whistle of the high winds and the shadow was gone.

 

*

 

Wash flipped the light on.

Around him the room was still, the only noise in the dead of night the quiet rustle of trees and the far-off song of a cricket.  It was unremarkable and empty, and he was the only thing of note inside, sitting bolt upright and clutching at his sheets with a desperate hand.  Slowly he relaxed his grip.  There was nothing there.  He was alone.

Wash lay back down and stared at the ceiling.  Sometimes he awoke in the night like this, afraid for no reason, convinced of things that weren’t there.  Nightmares, the internet told him, weren’t totally uncommon in people who were stressed out.  Nightmares and worse, the inexplicable fear sometimes coupled with sleep paralysis.  There was nothing quite as unsettling as feeling locked into your own body by fright.  Jolted awake by your dreams and unable to move, you knew with a certainty that defied all logic that you were not alone, that something, somewhere, stalked through the room towards you.  You couldn’t even turn your head to catch a glimpse of it before it struck.

Wash shuddered.  He was being ridiculous.  There was nothing in his room, just nightmares and a thousand miserable hours of studying that dragged him down like a weight.  He had been spending too much time indoors, that was all.  It was the stress of school and being cooped up all evening in his stuffy room combining in a boiling mess in his brain. 

Wash closed his eyes as the old house creaked above him, and he refused to believe that it held the rhythm of footsteps, the cadence of a tired sigh.  He was letting his imagination run away with him in the dark.  He needed a change of pace, a break from his studies, a way to calm down.  Maybe in the morning he would go for a walk.  He could track down York’s swimming hole, or join Carolina on her run if he woke early enough. 

It would do him good to get out of the house.

 

*

 

Rain pelted the windows and the door to the patio, hitting hard and fast like a volley of gunfire beating against bullet-proof glass.  If York didn’t know better he would think it was hail, but he’d checked to make sure and although the water was coming down relentlessly he had found no ice.  In the distance thunder rumbled, a low angry grumble creeping closer with every flash of lightning.  Even in the safety of his room, York felt the chill as the wind picked up and howled against the walls of the house.

It was about a week after the party, and a cold front was moving through with a vengeance.  Normally he wouldn’t mind a storm or two, the rain boxing him into his room and forcing him to study on what would be an otherwise tempting Sunday afternoon.  Carolina was in town, her soccer practice no doubt dragged indoors by the weather and turned into an impromptu visit to the gym.  He didn’t know where everyone else was, but the house had taken on that empty, echoing feeling of a large building with only one occupant.  Left alone, it had seemed like a good time to get some of his assignments finished.

The gray clouds and slanting rain had brought darkness to his room, forcing him to turn on his desk light.  Outside the wind blustered and whined like an animal, the sound of the rain an unsteady pulse as it was whipped through the air in all directions by the shifting gales.  The rhythm it created sounded almost like breathing.  In the eerie green glow of the lamp York convinced himself again that there would be no point in looking behind him. 

Nothing would be there.

York shivered, the fault of the dampness in the air and nothing else, and set aside the notes for the essay he was working on.  The atmosphere wasn’t helping his writing, so maybe reading was the way to go.  He pulled a thick photocopied packet of paper from his bag, the next assignment for his criminal psychology elective, and reached into one of the desk’s many pigeonholes for his highlighters.

He came up empty.  Frowning, York tried the next pigeonhole, and the next.  Then he looked in his bag, but they weren’t there either.  Getting up, he checked under the desk to make sure they hadn’t rolled off at some point while he wasn’t watching.  Still nothing.  He sighed.  He had probably left them at school, he thought morosely, sitting down again and leaning the chair back on two legs.

The wind struck the house again, the rain following in a sharp staccato beat.  To York’s ears it almost sounded like an impatient sigh.  He scowled.

“No,” he said aloud.  “You know what?  I’m taking a break.”

Immediately he felt a little silly for his outburst, but he stood by his decision.  Rainy days were nice for studying but there were plenty of other things he could do.  He could watch a movie, or make something to eat.  Hell, maybe he’d go exploring.  He had already wandered around most of the house, but maybe he’d find a secret kingdom in someone’s closet or something.

York smirked to himself, tossing the papers onto his desk to land in a haphazard mess and getting up, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Well, if he wanted closets, most of those were on the second floor.

Most of them, it turned out, were also in people’s bedrooms.  And most of those people, York discovered, had locked their doors while they were away.  It was like they didn’t trust each other or something.  York stood in the upper hallway, considering North’s stubborn doorknob.  The master bedroom had the biggest closet, and he was confident that he could pick the lock, but if there was anything interesting inside North probably would have told him.  He wasn’t interested in snooping around in his friends’ lives, after all, just seeing what relics the house might have to offer.  He had also discovered recently that practicing his skills on locks that they were actually using was maybe not the best idea.  It was possible that the door to his own bedroom might never lock properly again, and while he didn’t care all that much it might be a bit rude to break someone else’s door.

There were still the linen closets, he supposed.  He hadn’t really bothered to look at them before and who knows what someone might store on a high shelf?

It turned out that the things that were generally stored in linen closets were linens.  There were two hall closets on the second floor, one a direct mirror of the other, like most rooms in the house.  The one between North and Maine’s room boasted simple shelves filled with towels, sheets, and a few cozy-looking blankets and quilts.  Rummaging around unearthed nothing more exciting than a few stray feathers from an old, leaky down comforter.  

“What an awesome treasure hunt,” York muttered to himself with a sigh.  The other closet was probably the same, he thought, closing the door, but he might as well be thorough.  None of this exciting adventure had taken him much time and the idea of shutting himself up in his room again left him antsy. 

So he walked across the horseshoe balcony, running a hand over the old wood of the railing as he did.  His footsteps joined the beat of the rain, hollow and echoing in the high ceiling of the foyer, the strange acoustics warping the sound, redoubling it so that it seemed almost like there was someone walking just behind him, each footfall just a half second too late.  The great chandelier was turned off, as it usually was during the day, and the tall, thin windows over the front door cast a meager, wavering light into the foyer and beyond.  The shadows of the rain flowed and melted around him in the dim shifting light, and in the distance the thunder growled.

York laughed a little, suppressing a shiver.  Something about the house, he suspected, encouraged dramatics.  It was all too easy to imagine extra shadows and sinister noises, especially wandering around alone.  He knew that pretty well by now.  It was probably half the reason he was here, rooting through closets instead of doing his work.  Still, exploration beckoned and he was going to finish what he started, he thought as he reached the other hall closet, fully expecting an exact copy of the first.

He was wrong.  It wasn’t the same at all.

The first thing he noticed was that the light didn’t work.  Pulling the old chain produced only a sad, empty clicking sound and no radiance, the bulb probably burnt out without anyone noticing.  The poor illumination of the hallway did almost nothing to brighten the closet.  Beyond the open door the darkness inside was deep and so thick it seemed almost liquid, drowning any light that made it across the threshold.  In fact, it was far too deep.

York opened the door as far as he could, pushing it flush against the wall as he peered inside.  The other closet had been fairly typical, a line of shelves recessed a foot or so behind the door, going back a little farther than he had expected but nothing special.  The design of this one was completely different.  He took his phone from his pocket, trying to use the light of the screen to confirm what he saw.

Where normal shelves were parallel to the door, these were built perpendicular, running like a guide deeper into a closet that was transformed into a narrow hallway.  Venturing inside, York noticed that the shelves were mostly empty, only a few more towels and blankets, and at the very back, wedged into the corner, a stuffed animal.  He picked it up, coughing a little at the rising dust.  It was a rabbit, probably an Easter toy, its light blue fur crusted with dust and patches of something thicker that he couldn’t quite make out in the darkness.  He decided to take it outside to get a better look, but as he turned around he spotted the reason for the closet’s odd construction.

It was a door.

“Jackpot,” York said with a small grin.  He’d been looking for secret passages, more or less, and while ‘stuck at the back of a closet’ didn’t necessarily mean secret, it was still a part of the house he hadn’t seen.  Actually, he mused, it made a lot of sense.  He hadn’t really thought about it before, but in their tour of the house Carolina had shown him the master bedroom’s large walk-in closet.  Wash’s room, the mirror of North’s, didn’t have that, so it stood to reason that there was _something_ in that space. 

“If I was a betting man,” he said to himself, “I’d say this leads to the attic.”

Putting the plushy back on the shelf for later examination, York tried the door, the plain old handle moving barely a fraction of an inch in his grip.  Locked.  Well, that wasn’t a problem.  He reached into his pocket for his lock picks, the ones he’d gotten into the habit of carrying with him pretty much everywhere during the summer in the hopes that he’d find a challenge.  They’d almost gotten him in trouble a few times, to be fair, but York liked the practice and at least his hobby could be useful.

York crouched in front of the door.  Setting his phone on the floor nearby, the glow of the screen his only light, he examined the lock.  It was an old contraption, a lever-tumbler lock he’d expect to see in an interior door in an old house.  It was in pretty good condition, hidden away from the elements in the bone dry closet, and it shouldn’t take him long.  York went to work.

Inside the closet the sound of the rain was muffled, a distant drumming drowned out by the click of his tools against the metal.  After a few minutes the light on his phone died, the screen going dark to save power as time went by with no input.  The closet was plunged into darkness again, but he pressed on.  He didn’t need to see the lock to work on it, couldn’t see inside it anyway, and he was far too focused to stop.  As the minutes stretched on, he began to get frustrated, then annoyed.  There was no reason for the lock to be so difficult, it was the kind of thing he could literally do with his eyes closed.  Still, the stupid thing held solid, practically taunting him with whatever hidden treasures lay on the other side.

“Come _on,_ you asshole,” he growled, suddenly angry.

Just as he was about to give up and give the door a kick for good measure, the last lever finally slipped into place.

“Gotcha,” he grinned as the bolt slid back with a faint click, his irritation evaporating.  Scooping up his phone and putting his tools away and back in his pocket, he stood up and gave the door one last once over.

“Alright,” he said.  “Time to get a look at Narnia.”

The lock undone, the doorknob turned cleanly in his hand, but when he pulled on it the door stuck fast.

“What?” he complained, trying again.  It didn’t move an inch.  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!”

York turned his phone screen back on, holding it up to examine the doorframe.  With the help of the light he could see what he hadn’t noticed before.  Near the top and bottom of the frame, in neat, evenly spaced lines, there were six large nails.  The harsh backlight of his phone lent them a sickly faint purple gleam, the points of them lost in the wood, driven diagonally into the door.

In the oppressive darkness of the closet, York felt his skin begin to crawl.

Why was the attic door nailed shut?

Backing out of the small space, York stood in the cold light of the upstairs hallway and took a deep breath.

So he’d found a mystery.  He wasn’t about to leave it unsolved.  If he remembered correctly there was a large toolbox in the basement, and probably a claw hammer inside.  It shouldn’t take too long to pry the nails out, and then the attic would be open.  It would be easy.

York eyed the closet door.  For no reason he could name he swung it shut before making his way down the stairs, an eerie tight feeling following him into the foyer.  Stopping at the base of the staircase he used his fingers to pry open the hidden door, and stepping inside he felt around for a moment before flipping the switch.

Light burned bright for a single moment before bursting with a harsh pop and a searing flash.  The bulb was dead.

York stood at the top of the stairs, a yawning black tunnel descending down before him.  He hesitated, and then slowly took one step down, the wood creaking under his foot as he shifted his weight.  He stopped there, unmoving, for longer than he would ever admit.  Halfway into the darkness with the rain at his back, rhythm pounding like a frantic heartbeat, he stared into the depths of the house.  What little light there was moved in strange, shifting shadows.  The deep gray of the rain against the windows stirred and flickered around him like anxious, fluttering hands.  As he stood there a chill crept through the foyer, the temperature dropping as the storm did its work, and goose bumps erupted over his skin.

All he had to do was take another step and the darkness would have him.

York shook himself.

This was stupid.  He wasn’t afraid of the attic and he wasn’t afraid of the basement, either.  The light was playing tricks on him and he was acting like a six year old who was scared of the dark.  York rolled his eyes and stepped down.

With an echoing crash, the front door burst open.

York nearly jumped out of his skin, and barely caught himself from falling headlong down the basement stairs.

“Holy shit, I have never been so wet in my _life_ ,” Wash complained loudly, dashing into the house.

“Careful with the door,” North said mildly.  Maine grunted noncommittally, already making his way up the stairs in a beeline for the bathroom and probably a hot shower.  North shook his head and closed the door behind them, only catching sight of York when he turned back around.  “You alright there, York?”

York ran a hand through his dusty brown hair and laughed shakily.

“Just fine,” he managed.

“What are you doing?” Wash asked curiously.

York waved at the burned out light bulb.

“Was going to go looking for the toolbox,” he said, “but the light went out.  Does anybody have a spare?”

North frowned.

“I think the spare light bulbs are in the basement,” he said.

York looked down the darkened staircase once more and then back.

“Does anybody have a flashlight?” he asked a little weakly.

Wash shrugged.  North shook his head.

“Alright then,” York said.  He moved back into the foyer and shut the hidden door.  “I think I’ve had enough wandering around in the dark for the day.  We can fix it later.”

“What does that mean?” Wash wondered.

“Nothing,” York said quickly.  “Doesn’t matter.”

North was giving him an odd look, considering and almost knowing, but York brushed it off.

“I think I’m going to go back and finish my studying,” he said.  “Try not to drip all over the furniture, Wash.”

“Hey!”

York’s room seemed almost warm compared to the rest of the house.  The green light of his desk lamp cast a familiar glow across the room, and in its friendly light he leaned against his door until his heartbeat calmed.  At this point all he wanted was to get back to work and forget he’d ever bothered to leave the room.  Some dry reading would be good for his blood pressure.  He was almost looking forward to it until he remembered why he’d left in the first place.

“Goddamn it,” he sighed, making his way across the room and preparing to start the search again or maybe abandon it.  He’d get his work done even if he had to start underlining the article in pen, he didn’t even care.  His color-coded system could go screw itself, he just wanted something to occupy his brain, something that didn’t leave him feeling foolish and superstitious.

York reached the desk and stopped short.

The article was still sitting on his desk, but it was no longer in the half sprawled collection of pages he’d left it.  Instead it was placed neat and organized, every edge even and every corner crisp.

On top of it were his highlighters.

 


	2. The Shining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've made it to chapter two, wherein the slow build continues to be slow and the House definitely doesn't get any less haunted! WARNINGS specific to this chapter include canon-typical language, some talk of implied child abuse/neglect, and nightmares and other sleeping problems.
> 
> Also, I realized that I should probably make it clear that Carolina's lullaby in chapter one is an actual song and not something I came up with myself (I'm no lyricist). The song is, as she says in the story, not actually a lullaby but an old-time mountain song called "The Blackest Crow," which is... not to be confused with the Megadeath song by the same name. It's an old song, as the genre might suggest, and there are many different versions and lyrics, but if you're interested in checking it out there are several recordings on youtube that you can listen to. Rising Appalachia does a nice one, as do The Show Ponies, although neither is quite the same as the version I'm using in this story.
> 
> Chapter three will be posted on September 16th. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy the second chapter!

 

Washington woke in the dark to dead silence.

The night was cool, a chill racing in on the heels of the afternoon’s rain, and even after the storm cleared he had left the windows shut.  The glass had muffled the sounds of the countryside as he drifted off, the chirp of crickets not a distinct song but a faint creaking whisper.  The hoots of the owls in the woods were almost gone entirely, their quiet calls muted just as they were starting to feel familiar to him.  York had told him, a few weeks back, that there were Mountain Screamers in these woods, and that they would shriek in the night with a cry like a woman being murdered.  Carolina informed him that York was full of shit and that cougars hadn’t been seen in these mountains for decades, but even so Wash sometimes lay awake in the small hours of the morning, straining his ears as he listened for a distant scream.

In the month he had been sleeping there he’d almost gotten used to the noise of summer nights in the mountains, and the quiet was unsettling.  Even with the windows shut, however, there was still some sound.  The house creaked, the wind shook the old windows, and while the glass was a barrier it certainly wasn’t soundproof.  Then, suddenly, those things were gone.

Wash woke in the dark to dead silence, and he wasn’t alone.

He didn’t know how he knew, unwilling or unable to turn his head and look.  The air of the room was still, with no movement or sound to alert him to someone else’s presence, but it had that strange quality of a held breath, a tension looking for release.  Wash’s own breath was short, his quick, quiet gasps far too loud in his ears.  Something lurked in the room, just out of his sight, in the corner or at the window, maybe standing still at the foot of his bed, and he couldn’t bring himself to look, afraid of what he’d see.  He wasn’t even sure if he could try.

That was when he realized he was dreaming.

Sleep paralysis, Wash remembered, trying to calm down.  During the deepest cycle of sleep a person’s muscles locked in order to keep them from acting out their dreams.  On occasion it didn’t work quite right.  Sometimes it wasn’t enough, and sleepwalkers would wander through the night with no idea of what they were doing, but sometimes it was the opposite.  He felt awake and aware but his body didn’t believe him, wouldn’t move; it trapped him in his own skin.

They used to think it was caused by demons and evil spirits, some malevolent force pinning a man to his bed unseen.  There were paintings and sculptures, legends and ghost stories, and the terror people felt in that state was real, some barely remembered nightmare creeping into reality as his senses were fed lies by his half-awake mind.

He was alone in his room and the fear was imagined.  It was just a dream, superimposed onto the world by his tired brain.  Wash closed his eyes, tried to ignore it and go back to sleep.  His breathing was harsh and still too loud, the only sound in the silence of the night.  That was okay.  It didn’t matter.  There was nothing listening but him.

It was just a dream.

 

 

 

In a different corner of the house, Wyoming was also very much awake.  In fact he had never gone to sleep at all.  Hunched over his desk he scrawled notes into the margins of his books and articles, copying passages onto his laptop for further study and quick reference come the morning.  If his own room was unnaturally quiet he would hardly have noticed, far too focused on his thesis and his thoughts.  Working so late into the night wasn’t always the best move, but he had hit a rhythm in his research that he was loathe to abandon. 

After years of hard studying in his program he was so close to being finished he could taste it.  The only thing left was to finish his thesis and defend his PhD.  Any work that was being done was worth it, no matter how early in the morning.

Snapping shut his well-worn copy of _Hamlet_ , Wyoming reached into his satchel for the book he’d been looking forward to starting all evening.  It was a rare old manuscript, one he’d only gotten access to through interlibrary loan and would only be allowed to keep for a few days.  When he’d gone to pick it up from the university’s library he’d been told by a very strict librarian that under no circumstances could anything happen to it.

That was probably why he couldn’t find it.

Not the type to panic, Wyoming gave the bag a thorough search before taking it over to his bed and emptying it of all its contents.  A few articles and other books from his trip to the library lay spread across the blankets, but not the one he needed.  Frowning, he turned in a slow circle, taking in every corner of the room.  He hadn’t set his bag down after he’d come into the house, not until he’d put it by his desk chair where it had been ever since.  It was possible, he supposed, that it had somehow slipped out of his satchel when he put it down, jarred loose by the impact, but the bag hadn’t been all that full and it seemed unlikely.

Wyoming lowered himself to his knees and looked under the desk, then under the bed.

The book was simply gone. 

The wind gone from his sails, Wyoming levered himself back up again with a wince.  He could practically feel the productivity leaving him, the early hour finally hitting him hard as he lost his momentum.  If he couldn’t find the book then his research had well and truly stalled, for now.  Tomorrow he would retrace his steps.  Maybe he had forgotten and left it at the library, not even brought it home at all.

Wyoming heaved a grumpy sigh and went back to his desk to save his notes.  He closed his laptop and began to get ready for bed.  His research had hit a bump but he’d keep his chin up and get some rest instead.  It wasn’t the end of the world.

He’d find the book tomorrow.

 

*

 

It was Monday evening and York was bored.

Despite his slight detour the day before, he had actually gotten a lot of his work done over the weekend and was ahead of his assignments.  Unfortunately, he was the only one.  North, Wash, and Maine had spent half of Sunday hanging out with South and CT in town, Wyoming was pretty much always working on that thesis of his, and with Carolina’s weekend practices taking up her time she would murder him if he bothered her while she was studying. 

There wasn’t much to do, really.  He could always watch something, on the TV in the living room or on his laptop using their glacially slow internet, but he was tired of sitting around, wanted to feel like he was actually doing something for a change.  Yesterday’s adventure had been interesting but cut short, and the bulb in the basement still wasn’t fixed, so that was out for now.  He wasn’t about to risk his neck on those dark stairs again.

York got up from where he was lying on his bed and contemplating the ceiling.  He opened the French doors to the patio and looked out into the garden and the forest behind it.  It was a bit late to go exploring outside, the sun sinking low behind the hills and the trees, its brilliant glare fading into twilight.  The woods were probably still muddy from the insane tempest, anyway, it wouldn’t be much fun to go tromping around in wet underbrush in the dying light.

He closed the door.

Standing there with his back to the room, he could once again feel the weight of a gaze on him.  He didn’t turn around, there was never anything to see and it only made him feel even more paranoid knowing for sure that nothing was there.  If he had thought ignoring the constant feeling of being watched would make it go away he had been wrong.  If anything, it had gotten stronger.  Of course, it was usually strongest when he was trying to study.

York frowned.

“What?” he said aloud, trying not to feel like an idiot for talking to thin air.  “I don’t have any more homework to do, if that’s what you want.  If I have to sit around being bored then you have to suffer with me.”

Several seconds passed in silence, and despite his best efforts he was starting to feel ridiculous, standing there waiting for some sort of answer that wasn’t going to come.  It was just the house and the isolation playing tricks on him as always.  Long days cooped up in his room with his nose in the books were giving him cabin fever, and that was all.  If you waited long enough no matter how solitary you were you began to imagine that you weren’t alone.  But it was only that: imagination.

 _Bang_.

York jumped at the sudden noise and whirled around.  On the other side of the room his desk had fallen open, the foldout top making a sharp sound as it came to a sudden stop.  York stared at it for a long moment.

“And I guess that was the wind, huh?” he murmured.  Approaching the desk he noted that there was nothing unusual in or around it.  It had never fallen open before, and there didn’t seem to be any reason it should now.  “Okay,” he said, examining it.  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

That was when he saw the little drawers.  The desk had a dozen small pigeonholes and drawers, little places to store pens or other useful things.  York had already made use of some of them, but others had turned out to be locked.  He hadn’t really cared – he didn’t need that much space anyway, but now he stopped to wonder what was in them. 

He had already gotten into the habit of snooping, he might as well continue.

York examined the drawers thoughtfully.  They looked like old warded locks, the kind of thing that called for a good skeleton key.  It shouldn’t be a problem.  Digging through his lock-picking tools didn’t take long, and he was glad to have something to occupy his time.  It took a few minutes, but picking the lock on the first drawer went so much faster than the stubborn lock on the attic door.  If York didn’t know better he’d think something had been trying to stop him.

With a triumphant smirk, York pulled open the first of the locked drawers.  It was shallow and mostly empty, to his disappointment.  There were no incriminating documents or handfuls of tiny diamonds, nothing that you might hope to find in the locked drawer of an antique desk.  All he found was a key.

York picked it up and ran his fingers over the teeth.  Who locked a key in a drawer?  It wasn’t the key to anything else in the desk, it was the wrong kind, the type you used with a lever tumbler lock like…

Like the one to the attic.

York put it back in the drawer.

“Great,” he said.  “That’s helpful.  Wish I’d had that yesterday.”

Not that it would have mattered, he remembered, because it wasn’t the lock that was keeping him out.

Quickly, York turned to the second drawer.  He made short work of it, but he wasn’t expecting much after the first disappointment.  It was a little bigger than the first drawer, and when he slid it out it got stuck for a moment, something inside jamming up against the wood.  Gently he pushed it back in and tried again.  The second time the drawer opened smoothly, revealing a stiff stack of photographs.

It seemed weird to find photos locked in a desk drawer and not on display or pasted into books.  Like the key it felt like an odd thing to find.  It was even stranger when he realized that there were no photos at all on the walls of the house itself.  They must have worried about it breaking the decorating scheme or something, because he couldn’t remember seeing a single portrait or even painting, not of people or scenery.  Someone had gone to the trouble of taking these pictures and then hoarded them away.

York whistled, pulling them out and leafing through them.  They looked like family photos, many of them featuring a blonde woman and a little girl with bright green eyes.  The people in the pictures were smiling and laughing, the little girl tugging on her mother’s hand or sitting in her lap.  On the swing or on a backdrop of wildflowers the girl always seemed to be moving, a motion blur obscuring her in so many of the photos that it took him a few seconds to realize who it was.

About halfway through the stack York started grinning.

 

 

 

“Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen…”

Push-ups weren’t the most glamorous of work-out exercises but they were a staple for a reason.  Carolina levered herself up and down again, the long red ponytail that had slipped over her shoulder touching the floor with every repetition.  She might be known for her speed but her whole body needed to be trained and fit if she wanted to be successful as an athlete.  It made for a good study break, too, a chance to work physically while her mind rested.

In the fading twilight the room seemed unusually warm.  It wasn’t stuffy, as rooms with too many closed windows could get sometimes.  It was cozy, like being wrapped in a favorite blanket and set before a fire to soak up the heat.  The atmosphere of the room was like the best parts of childhood; filled with warmth, light, and memories of laughter.  When she studied sometimes she would sit on the window seat and gaze out, remember running across the lawn as a little girl, playing in the garden.  In those moments she felt almost like she was lit from the inside with a welcoming glow, a feeling of happiness and contentment. 

It felt like home.

In this case the ambient temperature was making her sweat a little more than necessary, though.  Finishing her repetitions, Carolina reached for her gym towel.  Wiping the sweat off her brow and her neck, she stood and opened the nearest window, letting in the twilight breeze.  Leaning out a little, she took a deep breath and savored the scents of late summer.

“Carolina!”

From her position at the window, Carolina turned to find York standing in her now open door.  She raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms.

“Is there some reason you seem to have forgotten how to knock?” she asked him pointedly. 

“Oh, pardon me,” he responded.  He shut the door behind him and then knocked twice on the inside with a cheeky smile.

“Who’s there?” she said dryly.  York groaned.

“Don’t you start that, too,” he said.  “I hear enough of it from Wyoming.”

“Well if you can’t remember what knocking is for maybe you should hear more of it,” she retorted.  “I’ve asked you not to bother me when I’m studying.”

York looked her up and down and raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t look like you’re studying, to me,” he said.  “Has your homework grown legs and tried to run away, or what?”

Carolina laughed a little.

“Alright, so you caught me on a break,” she admitted.  “I’m getting back to work soon, though.  What do you want?”

York grinned at her, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Look what I found,” he said, excitedly holding out what looked like a stack of papers.  She took it from him with a certain amount of lingering skepticism, wondering what could make him look so giddy and if she was going to get an eyeful of something she’d rather not see.  When she finally looked down, however, she simply froze, her eyes going wide.

It was a picture of her.

“What…?” she murmured, flipping the photo over and looking at the next one, and the next.  They were pictures of her as a very young girl, at three, four, five years old.  She looked happy and alive, always in motion and tugging on the hand of a pleased looking blonde woman that she barely recognized.  Her mother.  York had found photographs of her and her mother.

“Where did you get these?” she wondered softly.  She hadn’t seen a picture of her mother in such a long time.  She hadn’t thought there were any left.

“They were stuffed in a drawer in that desk in my room,” he replied almost smugly.  She took her eyes off the photos for a second to give him a quizzical look and he shrugged.  “The drawer was a little bit locked.”

“A little bit?”

“Well, it only took a little bit of effort to get it unlocked, anyway.”

“And you took that as an invitation,” she guessed.  York just grinned, not the least bit repentant.  He moved around to stand behind her and look over her shoulder as she continued to shuffle through the photos.

“That’s you right?” he asked as she stopped on a picture of a small bright-eyed girl doing a cartwheel while the woman watched with a delighted grin.  “You and your mom?”

“Yeah,” she said, running a finger lightly over the glossy paper.  “That’s her.”

“You were a pretty cute kid,” he said.  He put his arms around her waist and dug his chin into her shoulder.  She huffed a little, but leaned against him.

“If you say so,” she said vaguely, her eyes on a different figure.  Carolina continued to shift through the pictures in quiet wonder, one after the other, looking at her own gap-toothed grin and her mother’s proud face.  “I haven’t…” she started as she flipped another to the back of the stack. 

She stopped short.

“Huh,” York said behind her.  “What do you think happened to that one?”

The photograph wasn’t dissimilar to the others.  In it her mother smiled and little Carolina was laughing, both of them looking to the side.  It was obviously taken outdoors, in the kitchen garden Carolina assumed based on the angle of the house and the French doors in the background, the two of them sitting in the dirt and wearing gloves. 

Her mother had been a terrible gardener, she suddenly remembered.  Her father had always claimed she didn’t have the patience for it, something Carolina had no doubt inherited from her.  Digging in the dirt and planting something was a fun activity, something cool to do with her kid, but the next part, the watering and nurturing and helping it grow, had always seemed so tedious.  It was the kind of thing they would start together and then forget in favor of something more fun.  Then, much later when she had been gone again for weeks or months, Carolina would find her father crouched in the dirt, pulling up weeds and telling her that if they couldn’t commit to something they shouldn’t do it at all.

In many ways the picture was much like the others, a frozen moment of a past that had gone hazy with the grime of years brought back into sharp clarity in a still image.

Unlike the others, it was ripped in two.

Carolina ran her finger down the ragged edge of the photo.  Whatever she and her mother were looking at had been torn away, half the scene lost to time.  She flipped to the next photo.  Part of the corner was missing, ripped off with little care or delicacy, a piece of her childhood destroyed.  She looked at the next picture, and the next, and the next, and all of them were the same.  Gaping sections had been cut out, the photos mutilated beyond repair, leaving the figures in them sitting opposite to holes, talking to an absence, and smiling at nothing.

“That’s… kind of creepy,” York murmured, staring at the pictures as she moved through more and more of them.

The sun had set while they were talking, the early night creeping in, and with it the twilight breeze grew cold.  So close to the window, Carolina could feel the chill raising goose bumps on her arms as she flipped through the photographs with numb fingers.  Finally she came to the last one, a picture of her mother in uniform, standing on the front steps of the house, her cap on her head and her bag in her hand, her expression impatient but amused.  In the last dozen it was the only one that was still whole.

She stared at it.

“Carolina?” York said quietly.

“He took them down,” she said suddenly, still looking at the photo.  “After she died, he… he took all the pictures away.  I never knew what happened to them, I guess I thought he didn’t like to look at them, didn’t want to be reminded.  But… maybe he just wanted them in easy reach.”

“Okay…” he said slowly.  “But why are they ripped up?”

She looked through several of them again before she noticed the obvious missing element.

“He’s not in any of them,” she said.  She held them up and showed him the ones from the front of the stack, the ones that were pristine and untouched.  “See?  These are all of me and my mother, and they’re fine.  The later ones looked like… like he ripped himself out of them.”

“Jesus,” York muttered.  “Why the hell would he do that?”

Carolina was quiet for a long moment, looking again at the last photo.  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was from that last day, the day her mother left and didn’t come back.

She pulled away from York, moving to sit on the window seat.  She kept staring at that last picture, wondering how many times her father had done the same, alone in his study, keeping it as a privilege just for him.

“It was hard for him, when she died,” she said eventually.  “I didn’t really understand at the time, she was almost never around anyway and I don’t think I really got it until he spelled it out for me.”

York sat down beside her.

“He doesn’t seem like a particularly warm guy,” he said a little cautiously, probably thinking of the few times he’d crossed paths with the Director.

Carolina laughed a little, and if it was shaky, a tiny bit bitter, neither of them acknowledged it.

“Well, no,” she said.  “But he wasn’t before that, either, as far as I can remember.  He was always kind of prickly, didn’t always know how to show people he cared.  But after… he just kind of… shut down for a while.”

“Shut down?”

“He’d go into his study for hours and hours.  He canceled his appointments, started drinking.  Sometimes I wouldn’t see him at all for a couple of days at a time.”

“How old were you?”

“I was five.”

“Jesus Christ,” York muttered, dragging a hand over his face and putting his arm around her in a tight half hug.  She barely felt it.

“He loved her so much,” she said blankly.  “When she was gone he fell apart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”  She put the photographs down, wrapping her arms around herself.  “You know, in the months after she died, when all he seemed to do was drink, there were times I thought…”

“What?” York asked.  She didn’t continue, not even sure what she was going to say.  There was something in her memory that nagged at her, something she knew was important that stayed stuck on the tip of her tongue.  The silence stretched out, and she could feel him looking at her, searching her face for some clue of what she’d been about to say when even she didn’t know.

“Carolina…” he started quietly, and she glanced at him.  His brow was furrowed and looked like he didn’t want to voice whatever question he had now.  She knew he would anyway; it was probably just another one of those things he had to ask, even if he wasn’t sure she would answer or if he wanted to know.  “Carolina, when he was drunk did he ever…?”

She blinked at him, startled.

“What?” she asked, her reverie broken.  Then she understood what he meant and shook her head vigorously.  “No,” she said.  “No, no, York, don’t—he never hurt me.  I was never afraid of him, he wasn’t—no.  I was just a little lonely for a while, that was all.”

“Oh,” York said, sounding relieved.  Then he frowned.  “Still, that’s pretty terrible.”

“It didn’t even last all that long, really,” she said, shrugging.  “After a couple of months he got dead drunk and… well, I don’t really remember what happened.  I remember yelling, but I wasn’t hurt, I know that.  Whatever it was it must have shaken him, because right after that he got a lot better.  He stopped drinking, threw himself into his studies instead and got another degree.”

“He started spending time with you again?” York asked.  Carolina shrugged.

“Not really,” she admitted.  “But it didn’t really matter.  I started school at the end of that summer and after that I had friends.”

“You spent the whole summer out here by yourself?”

York sounded so horrified that she had to laugh.

“It wasn’t so bad,” she said.  “I was a kid, I had an imagination.  It’s when I started running, and when things were really bad,” she added jokingly, “I always had my imaginary friend.”

Far from the teasing response she expected, York grew suddenly still.  She looked at him in confusion, and she didn’t really know how to describe his expression. 

“You had an imaginary friend?” he asked, and he sounded almost wary.

Carolina raised an eyebrow at him.

“A lot of kids do,” she said dryly. 

“I guess,” York said, but he still seemed preoccupied, like something had just occurred to him and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

While he was thinking, Carolina picked up the photos again.  Setting aside the picture of her mother in uniform, she started leafing through them one more time, looking at the torn edges and trying to be objective.  She still didn’t know why he would do it, why he would rip himself out of the pictures of his family.  Of course, she didn’t know why he would tear himself away from his only living family, either, she thought bitterly.  Maybe in a drunken stupor he had somehow come to the conclusion that he didn’t deserve a family.  Maybe that was why he’d closed himself off to her and never really opened up again.

She rubbed one of the photos between her fingers, staring at the missing section, at the way the innocent child on the glossy paper looked at it with nothing short of adoration.  There was something about it that she couldn’t place, that nagging feeling tugging at her mind again.  Just looking at the picture made her feel like she would never understand, as though by tearing parts of it away he had ripped out a piece of her as well.  Whatever had been in that blank space, it was gone forever. 

The room was growing colder in the onset of night, and even with York sitting next to her Carolina shivered in the chilly breeze.  Abruptly she stood, jarring his arm loose from around her shoulders and dropping the pictures in a pile next to him.  Crossing the room, she shut the window firmly, locking out the cold.

“I need to get back to studying,” she said, looking at her hands on the windowsill.

“Carolina?”

She turned around with a small smile.

“Thanks for showing me the pictures, York,” she said.  “When I’m finished I’ll come find you, alright?  We can watch a movie or something.  How does that sound?”

He looked like he wanted to object to the sudden brush-off, but instead he stood up, giving only one short glance at the pile of photos, and made his way towards the door.  As he passed her by the window he stopped to draw her in for a small, chaste kiss.

“Okay,” he said, smiling.  “You get back to work.  But the very _second_ you are finished, you come get me and we’ll do something fun, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she breathed.  She kissed him again and then smacked him lightly on the shoulder.  “Go on, get out,” she said.  “You’re distracting me.”

York laughed, but he did as he was told.

Carolina watched the closed door for a moment with a lingering smile.  Then she went back to the window seat and scooped up the photos.  She straightened the stack, tapping them against the seat of the cushion to make it as even as possible, and then took them to her dresser.  Opening the top drawer, she shoved the photographs under her stack of shirts and then slammed it shut again.  She stood there for a second, staring blankly at the closed drawer, and then shook her head.  Making her way back to the window seat, she picked up one of her textbooks and settled in to read.

Carolina went back to work.

 

*

 

Sunrise spread across the room like fire, the creeping fingers of dawn lighting everything they touched with a glow like an ember.  The heat of the rising sun moved like warm honey, bringing with it a feeling of sweet contentment and an almost sticky languor.  It seeped into his mind and his muscles, leaving him relaxed and comfortable.  Sleep held onto him with a gentle, firm grip, reluctant to release him into the harsh waking world.  He didn’t want to go, either, reveling in the perfect satisfaction of a dreamless night.

At the back of his still half-asleep mind something tugged at his consciousness.  A small, needling feeling that tried to prod him into awareness.  He only wanted to sleep, but it was persistent.  There was something off, it told him, something strange.

In the caress of the morning sun, he stirred.  

Wasn’t his room on the west side of the house?

Maine snapped awake.

The room was dim in the early morning and chilly with the fading night.  He was slumped over his desk, where he must have fallen asleep doing his homework.  His textbook had fallen to the floor at some point, landing open with the pages bent against the hardwood.  Laid out in front of him was his Spanish workbook, the pencil lines a little smudged.  Only half of it was finished.

Maine rubbed a hand over his face with a discontented grumble.  The college required a certain number of foreign language credits to graduate, but at the rate he was going it was never going to happen.  It was partially his fault for putting it off until his senior year, but it had sounded so daunting, he hadn’t wanted to deal with it until he was forced to.  He wasn’t even very good at articulating himself in English, as far as he was concerned he might as well be trying to learn to speak to dolphins.

It was the participation grade that was really killing him, though.  He hated talking in front of people, his voice turning into a guttural mess and the words getting garbled and lost underneath.  Unfortunately, when you were learning a language the teacher actually expected you to try and speak it.  It didn’t matter if he got it right when it was written down, no one could ever seem to understand him in class anyway.

The alarm clock on his desk started blaring and he switched it off with a grunt.  He glared at what was left of his homework and then gathered it up, pushing it all haphazardly into his backpack.  If he got to campus early enough maybe he could persuade someone else to finish it for him.  Either way it wasn’t getting done here, where he was sorely tempted to just go back to sleep.

After getting dressed, Maine made his way downstairs.  Despite the good night’s rest he felt unusually tired, nearly stumbling several times before he made it into the kitchen.  North was there already, drinking a mug of coffee and looking contemplatively at the countertops.

“Good morning, Maine,” he said idly without glancing up. 

Maine grunted a hello and headed for the fridge.  He didn’t want to spend a long time on breakfast and ended up just grabbing a few hardboiled eggs, a stack of bread, and some orange juice.  He could get more from the cafeteria on campus since he was going in early anyway.  He took a banana out of the fruit bowl for good measure, and then began slotting the bread into the toaster.  He had just finished wolfing down the rest of his food when the last of the toast popped up.  Grabbing it, he made for the door, figuring he could finish it on the way.

“You headed to campus early today?” North asked.  Maine shrugged and then nodded.  “If you want to wait a couple minutes I can give you a ride, we’ll save some money by carpooling.”  He glanced at the clock.  “Shouldn’t be long now,” he said.

Maine frowned at him, nonplussed, but North just smirked and nodded towards the archway that led away from the dining room.  Just as he predicted, a few seconds later the sound of a door slamming echoed through the house and York came charging around the corner.

“Shit,” he said as he rounded the counter and grabbed an apple, hiking his bag up.  “Why didn’t Carolina wake me up?”

“She probably thought you could do that by yourself,” North said.

“Forgot to set my alarm,” York said around a bite of the apple, which he had jammed into his mouth.  “She out running?”

“Of course.”

“Damn, I wanted to talk to her before she left,” York sighed.  “Well, I guess we should get going, then.”

“Maine’s joining us today,” North said as he grabbed his own bag from where it was sitting on the breakfast bar.

“I’m guessing he’s going to want shotgun,” York grumbled while they walked out.  “That’s what I get for being friends with a mountain.”

Maine smirked. 

As they reached the foyer, Wyoming came down the stairs, a frustrated look on his face.  Even his moustache looked a little more bristly than usual.

“Everything all right there, Wyoming?” North asked him casually.

“I seem to have misplaced one of my books, old chap,” he replied.  “I’ve searched the whole room about a dozen times but I can’t seem to find the blasted thing.”

“What’s it look like?” North asked.

“North, come on, we have to go,” York complained, but North just waved him off.

“Oh, you know.  Rectangular,” Wyoming said less than helpfully.  “Old, leather-bound.  It was on loan and if I don’t find it I’ll have to pay a hefty fine, not to mention losing the research.”

“Is your book that looks like a book the one that’s sitting on the coffee table over there?” York asked, rolling his eyes. 

The others followed his gaze to the living room.

“What?” Wyoming asked, startled.  “No, that can’t be right, I never took it out of the room.”

York tromped over to it and swiped the book from the coffee table, giving it a once over before holding it up for the others to see.  Rectangular, old, leather-bound, it fit all the descriptors.  As did about half the other books in the house, but none of them had a long, complicated title about the deconstruction of Shakespearian literature, so York looked justifiably confident in his assumptions.

“Looks like one of yours,” he said, bringing it back and shoving it at Wyoming, who stared at it.  “Happy reading.  Come on, North, let’s get out of here.”

“What in the blazes…?” Wyoming muttered as York and North made for the door.  “How did it _get_ down here?  I could have sworn…”

Maine shrugged.  He gave his friend a comforting pat on the shoulder, and Wyoming lurched under the force, nearly dropping the book.

“Sorry,” he muttered, but Wyoming wasn’t listening.

“It’s like it got up and walked down here on its own,” he murmured, his brow furrowed.  “Unless…”

Maine waited for a moment, but he was pretty sure Wyoming wasn’t talking to him.  With another shrug, he followed the others out, leaving his friend in the front hall with an expression that was so confused it was almost angry.  Shutting the door, he made his way across the driveway to the shady tree they all parked under.  He buckled himself into the passenger seat of North’s car, York still urging them to hurry up and get the lead out, and his thoughts turned back to his incomprehensible Spanish homework and the odds that it would ever be finished, or that it would even matter in the long run.

By the time they drove away, he had already forgotten the entire incident.

 

*

 

Having Tuesday afternoons free was something Wash had come to treasure.  It was time to hang out on campus or in town, to watch a movie, or maybe just take a nap and try to catch up on his sleep.  A free afternoon was one of the best differences between high school and college.  In high school it had seemed like half the point was just to keep teenagers occupied for as long as possible and therefore hopefully out of trouble.  College, on the other hand, was about growing as a person, making friends and learning new things whether in the classroom or on your own.  Students were treated like adults, and allowed to manage their own time.  If his schedule aligned to give him a free hour or two, or even a whole day, he could do whatever he wanted with it.  He could start going to the gym, or visit the local animal shelter.

Or he could spend it shut up in his bedroom, staring at his astronomy homework.

Wash groaned, letting his head fall with a miserable thump onto his desk.  He had thought he could get the assignment out of the way early and then have the rest of the afternoon and evening free, but instead all he seemed to be doing was thinking about the million other more fun ways he could be occupied.

It was useless.  The star charts he was supposed to be labeling made no sense to him, just a bunch of dots and lines swimming around on the page like they were deliberately running from his pencil.  The longer he looked at it the more hopeless he felt.  Taking the class had been a dumb idea anyway; he liked stars but that didn’t mean he knew anything about them.  No matter how cool he thought space was that didn’t mean he could understand the science behind it.

He sat there staring at the paper and wishing it would just make sense.  The oblique angle wasn’t really helping, but he was at his wits end.  He felt like he had been there for hours already, stuck at his desk doing something time consuming and pointless.  The longer he worked the more certain he was that he was just wasting his time.  All of his studying had started to feel like that lately, if he were honest with himself.  Every frustratingly dull word of the articles and textbooks he had to read, every mediocre paper he turned in, and every botched math worksheet was just him spinning his wheels before he gave up and dropped out.  He spent so much time in his room staring at his assignments and wondering why he even bothered.

Idly he thought of his cats, wishing he had thought to ask Carolina if he could bring them to the house.  There was nothing quite like a lapful of purring cat to make a person feel useful and wanted.  He wondered if they missed him or if they had just forgotten him once he was no longer there to pet them.  They were probably sleeping the day away back at his parents’ house, barely aware that he was gone.

Wash was starting to feel like he did more studying than sleeping.  It shouldn’t be so difficult, he was only a sophomore, but he was so tired all the time that his schoolwork was starting to show it.  Nothing seemed to help.  Even changing things up and looking at cat videos on the internet or listening to music for a while didn’t seem to take down the stress, and with the stress came the nightmares, sleep deprivation in an endless cycle.

He never had gone out exploring, he suddenly remembered.  Wash sat up and glanced out the big bay windows, taking in the bright blue, nearly cloudless sky.  It was a beautiful day, perfect for traipsing around in the woods, and all the mud the storm had churned up was probably dry again after the last two days of constant sun.  Looking back to his homework again he made a decision.

He needed to get out.

Wash practically jumped out of his seat with newfound determination.  Looking out the window again and remembering the recent cold snap, he went to the closet and found his favorite jacket, the dark gray one with the yellow stripe.  He then hesitated for a second before opening the drawer in his nightstand and taking out a large folding knife.  It was a durable looking thing with a three and a half inch blade, a present from CT for his birthday last year.  He didn’t really use it for much, but he put it in his pocket anyway, in case he needed to bushwhack through the forest or fight a bear or something.

Shutting his door, Wash made his way down the stairs and out the front door.  Standing in the bright sun on the front lawn he already felt a little better.  He turned and looked at the house, still a huge looming presence but not nearly as ominous as it had been a month ago.  Even the boarded up window of the tower didn’t look threatening anymore, just some needed repairs that had been left too long.

The forest surrounded the house on all sides, pushed back by the lawn but encroaching slowly.  Wash tried to remember what York had told him about the swimming hole.  He was pretty sure he had said it was to the west, so he made his way around the exterior wall of the living room and past the patio with the door to York’s room.  Setting the house to his back, he was off.

Wandering through the forest was the perfect escape from the books and papers that had become such an oppressive part of his life.  The mountain air was crisp and cool, his jacket snug around him, and the sun shone cheerfully through the bright green leaves on the trees.  It was still too early for them to turn, not quite fall, not for another week or two, and it felt like the last breath of summer.  Pushing through the underbrush in the dappled light of the afternoon made him feel like a real explorer.  In the rustle of the woods, the creak of trees in the wind and the chirping of birds in the distance, it was easy to lose track of time.  He must have hiked for nearly an hour before he realized he had no idea where he was.

“Oh….” Wash said aloud, stopping on a rock that overlooked a steep drop, the ground sliding away into a small dell, leaves gathered at the bottom near a log covered in moss and lichen.  “…shit.”

He spun in a circle, trying to remember where he had come from.  Was that a rock formation he had walked by already?  Did that tree look familiar?

“Of course it looks familiar, Wash,” he muttered to himself, “it’s a fucking _tree_.  It looks like a tree, like all trees do.  Trunk, branches, leaves, the whole shebang.  A tree is not a landmark when you’re in the forest.”

Most of his trek had been climbing up, he thought, biting his lip.  So if he wanted to go back, all he had to do was go down.  The only problem being that he appeared to be on a ridge and there was more than one down to pick from.

“East,” he said to the trees and whatever animals might be listening.  “I left the house going west, so… the house is east from here.”

Assuming he had travelled in a straight line and not deviated at all.  Realistically it was pretty easy to get turned around in the forest.  Case in point, he wasn’t actually sure which way east was.

“Well, fuck,” he said, wishing he’d thought to bring a compass.  The trees were thick above him and the sun seemed to have gone behind a cloud, but maybe if he continued along the ridge for a little way he would be able to find a vantage point with a good view of his surroundings, or a place where he could pinpoint the sun.  It was really the only thing he could think of to do.

Suddenly nervous, Wash set off again, walking along the ridge.  No matter what he did he seemed to be going deeper into the forest, the day seeming to get darker even though the light should still be strong.  The cool breeze was starting to feel cold and the longer Wash walked the more worried he became.

Finally he found a small clearing, a space in the trees with a full view of the sky.  Finding the sun, he tried to remember what he learned in his astronomy class about the angle of the Earth.  If he remembered correctly, the sun didn’t set exactly in the west except on the equinox, which was a dozen days away, so if he walked directly opposite to it he’d be heading southeast and just get more lost.  Wash adjusted his angle, pretty sure this time that he wasn’t wrong, and started to make his way down the ridge.  As long as he kept his inner compass straight this time, he would be fine.

Wash tripped about halfway down the hill.

His feet slipped out from under him on damp leaves, pitching him down the slope, which only seemed to get steeper as he slid downward in a wild, uncontrollable rush.  Grabbing onto saplings and bushes didn’t offer much help in slowing his sudden momentum, but after a few frantic seconds he hit flat ground and Wash skidded and stumbled to a halt.  For a long moment he stood there, hands on his knees, trying to get his panicked breathing under control, and then he straightened up to get a look around.

“What the…” he murmured, eyes going wide.

In his frantic descent he had somehow made his way into a small ravine.  At one end a huge boulder sat, rising from the ground like a solid wall of rock wedged into the hillside, creating a dead end.  The bottom of the tiny gorge was almost bare of plants, filled with dead leaves but cleared of bushes or ground cover, tamped down until it was almost level, like a floor.  A few young trees grew at one end by the rock, too big to be saplings but stunted in the poor light.  At some point in their early life they had been twisted, tied together into an arch that curved towards the rock in a way that made it look almost like a lean-to.

In the rock over the bent archway of trees, cut so deeply that it must have ruined the knife, were carved the words _FUCK OFF_.

Wash stared at it for a moment before making his way closer.  There was no one there, the whole woods empty as far as he could tell, and the rudimentary sign had only made him curious.  It looked like someone had been hanging out up there in the middle of nowhere, like a mountain hideaway.  He stepped under the curved trees and looked around.

Honestly it wasn’t all that impressive.  A medium sized uprooted tree stump had been set in one corner, probably to be used as a bench, and a few objects were scattered around.  A pack of cigarettes lay next to the stump, only one or two missing and the rest decomposing.  There was a magazine, half open and pages exposed, mostly disintegrated with the ink running into a soggy incomprehensible mess.  Pretty much everything he found was trash, torn, or moldy, and even the stump appeared to be rotting, tiny mushrooms growing out of one side of it.  No one had been there for a very long time.

Wash turned and was about to leave when he spotted something glinting in the haphazard light that peeked through the branches of the tilted trees.  Crouching down in the small space, he shifted the wet mess of the magazine and reached under it.  It was a lighter, a simple zippo in surprisingly good condition considering how long it had probably been rusting on the forest floor, the shining metal a light sky blue.  York would have called it Carolina Blue, Wash mused as he turned it over, probably with a pointed look at his girlfriend’s preferred aqua colored shirt and a sigh of mock disappointment.  On the bottom of the lighter was printed the letter E, the company logo, and then the letters V, I and I.  It looked like the Roman numeral for seven, but he wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean.  He flipped it open and was unsurprised when he couldn’t get it to light.  He kept it anyway, shoving it into his jacket pocket next to CT’s knife.

He made his way out of the strange little hut and back into the small ravine.  If there was someone out here in the woods, he reasoned, however long ago it was, then there must be something nearby that he could walk to.  Maybe there was another house or a hiking trail of some kind that he could use to find his way home.  Wash walked over to the other end of the hidden area, which after a few yards opened up back into the woods, the steep sides of the little ravine melting away into the hillside.

“Well that’s lucky,” Wash sighed, glad he wasn’t trapped with no way out but to climb.  He made for the entrance but stopped short as he heard a crunching sound beneath his shoes.  Glancing down, he saw a sparkle of color, like glitter sprinkled on the leaves.  Confused, he glanced around.

Near the exit there was a log, old and half rotted like the stump, lying against one wall of the ravine.  Around it were scattered small piles and shards of colored glass.  Wash frowned and moved closer, careful to avoid the worst of it, and examined some of the bigger pieces.  Picking one up and trying to read what was left of the label he realized they were mostly old liquor bottles.  There were small rocks and pebbles in the mix as well, as though someone had lined the bottles up for target practice, a tiny rustic shooting range.

While he explored the afternoon waned, the temperature dropping from pleasantly cool to a permeating chill.  Wash shivered and stood.  He had wasted too much time here, he needed to get back to finding his way home before the sun set and he had to face the suddenly very real possibility of spending the night alone in the woods.  Wrapping his arms around himself, he stepped back into the trees and looked around.  The sun was starting to sink into late afternoon, the light coming through the trees in a shining glare that made it easy to locate, and Wash took off with it at his back.

After another twenty minutes of walking he stopped again. 

“Is that…?” he muttered, listening carefully.  It sounded like the wind but the trees weren’t moving.  Wash turned, trying to find the source of the noise.  Another strange whooshing sound filled the air, the trees still motionless around him.  He followed the noise, not sure if it was what he hoped, until a few minutes later he broke through the underbrush and onto pavement.

“Oh thank god,” he breathed in relief.

He had found the road.

Or rather, he had found _a_ road, he realized abruptly.  He still wasn’t sure where he was or how far from the house, and he didn’t know every road in the surrounding countryside.  Even so, it was better than nothing, and a road had to go somewhere.  Maybe he was closer to civilization than he had thought.  He pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket and flipped it open hopefully.

No signal, it told him cheerfully.

Wash sighed and put it away.  He picked the side of the road going in the direction closest to east and started what was sure to be a long trudge home.  At least walking on the road was less treacherous than stumbling through the forest.

As soon as he thought it a car raced around the bend and straight at him, as though determined to prove him wrong.  With a high-pitched yelp Wash tried to dodge, throwing himself out of the way and landing in the ditch on the side of the road.  Squealing rent the air as the driver slammed on the brakes just a little too late, nearly losing control of the car.  Then everything went quiet.

Lying in a ditch full of what he was starting to suspect were blackberry brambles, Wash wondered what the hell had happened to his afternoon.  All he had wanted was a break and a little hike.  Was that really too much to ask?

A car door slammed.

“Oh my god, I didn’t see you standing there, are you oka—Wash?”

Wash blinked at the person gaping down at him from the side of the road.

“Connie?” he said, trying to sit up only to find himself tangled in thorns.

“Jesus Christ, Wash, what the hell were you doing standing in the middle of the road?” CT asked, leaning down to help him up. 

“I wasn’t—I didn’t— _you almost killed me!”_ Wash said, his voice rising into that frazzled squeak the others always teased him about.

“I know, sorry,” she said as she pulled him to his feet.  She looked him up and down and winced.  “You look like shit.  What are you doing out here?  You’re like two miles away from the house, how did you even get here?”

“I walked,” Wash mumbled.

“What, by yourself?”

“Yeah, uh… can I get a ride to the house?”

CT stared at him for a second and then laughed.

“Yeah, that’s where I was going anyway,” she said, taking him by the arm and dragging him towards her car.  “Let’s get you back home before you fall off a cliff.  Come on, get in.”

Wash buckled himself in, wincing at the bleeding scratches covering his hands.  Even his jacket had little tears in it, and if the sting was anything to go by they were probably all over his face, too.  CT started the car, and Wash leaned back in the passenger seat and just hoped they had a first aid kit.

 

 

 

There was a shadow on the living room wall.

Carolina stood, arms crossed and legs akimbo, frowning at the patch of darkness across from her.  In and of itself a shadow was nothing unusual in this room; the windows faced full west and in the evening on a clear day sunlight streamed through, casting everything in sharp relief, deep shadows stretching away as the evening lengthened, early heralds of the night.  An hour ago, as she sat on the sofa, alone in the room save for her reading, this shadow in particular had been unremarkable.  In fact she had thought it was hers, the vague, dark shape of a person silhouetted directly across from her, framed and cast by the light of the dying day.

That had been an hour ago.  Since then the sun had sunk inch by inch towards the horizon, pulling and warping the shadows along with it, but this one, this one shadow, had not changed.  She couldn’t be sure, she hadn’t been watching it particularly intently at first and had only noticed it by chance.  There was one thing she knew for certain, however: the shadow wasn’t hers.

It didn’t move when she did, not the barest inch even when she stood from her place on the sofa.  It didn’t seem to move for anything, not the objects in the room and not the angle of the sun, as though it had not been cast at all, but painted on the wall by an unseen hand.  None of this would have bothered her, shadows being known to play tricks on the mind, except for one thing. 

She couldn’t for the life of her figure out what was casting it.

It had to be something outside, she reasoned.  There was nothing in the room that should cast a shadow that shape, and she’d only noticed it today.  Maybe one of the guys had put something in the garden in front of the windows.  All she had to do was turn around and she’d see what it was, what was casting the shadow.

Carolina didn’t move.

“Carolina?  Do we have a first aid kit?”

The moment was broken by Wash’s shout, high-pitched and anxious, coming from the vicinity of the kitchen.  Automatically she glanced up towards the source of the yell, and as she did the sun finished its descent behind the hills and the whole room slipped into twilight.  When she looked back again the shadow was gone.  All the shadows were gone, she corrected herself, and rolled her eyes at her own foolishness.

Without a second glance, she marched determinedly out of the room.  She should probably go see why Wash would need that first aid kit, and whether or not a lecture was warranted as well.  She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted when there were things to do.

Behind her, not a single shadow lingered.

 

 

 

“You know, for an only child you sure do pull off ‘big sister’ well,” CT observed with more than a little amusement.

Carolina smiled faintly as she wiped the blood off another scratch, ignoring Wash’s indignant squawk as the warm, wet cloth pressed against his injury.

“I always wanted siblings,” she admitted, slapping on another Band-aid with what Wash felt was more force than necessary.  “What can I say?  I like the opportunity to boss people around.”

“Pretty sure you do that anyway,” Wash muttered.  He hissed as she pressed against a particularly deep cut on his cheek in retaliation. 

When they had finally made it to the house Carolina had taken one look at him and told him to sit his ass down while she got the first aid kit from the bathroom.  She was taking care of the scratches on his face and neck while he wrapped Band-aids around his fingers and hands.  He could probably do it all himself using the bathroom mirror, but when he suggested it she had given him that flat, narrow-eyed look she reserved for people who disobeyed her and simply pointed at the dining room chair.  Wash had decided that maybe he’d been injured enough for one day, and sat down.

“How did this even happen, Wash?” she asked in exasperation.  “Did you throw yourself into a blackberry thicket?”

“More or less,” Wash grumbled, giving CT a disgruntled look.  She shrugged.

“I found him wandering on the road a couple miles out,” she said.  “Sounds like he got lost in the woods.”

“What were you doing in the woods in the first place?” Carolina asked, moving behind him to get a look at the back of his neck.  When he’d rolled off the road and into the brambles he had primarily landed on his back, so it probably wasn’t pretty.  It certainly hurt.

“I was just hiking,” he said.

“Off trail?  By yourself?” she asked, and although CT had asked him the same thing from Carolina it sounded infinitely more disappointed.  He was starting to think that CT was right; Carolina did treat him kind of like a kid brother, with all the scathing condescension that occasionally implied.

“Didn’t you ever wander around in the woods as a kid?” he asked, defensive.  It hadn’t seemed like such a stupid thing to do when he’d set out, he was just going for a walk.

“Absolutely not,” she answered.  “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“Why?” Wash asked, wincing as she started cleaning the cuts on his neck.  “Are there bears?”

Carolina snorted.

“Bears aren’t really your first worry when you’re lost and dying of exposure, Wash,” she said.  “There’s a lot of woods to get lost in, out here.”

“You really never went exploring as a kid?” CT asked curiously.  “I mean, not like Wash did, just running off without any clue what he was doing—”

“Hey—”

“But not even with a compass or a map, or anything?”

Carolina shook her head.

“Not off trail, not by myself,” she said.  “I was always told to stay out of the forest.  There are more dangerous things in the woods than bears.”

“Like what?”

“Well, booby traps,” she said, tone completely even.

Wash twisted around to look at her.

“ _What?_ ” he said incredulously.  She raised an eyebrow at him.  “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s not unheard of,” she said.  She put a finger on his jaw and pushed his head back around so she could start putting Band-aids on his neck.  “If you were unlucky you could stumble onto a still.”

“A still?”

“She’s talking about moonshine, Wash,” CT said, looking fascinated.  “The illegal liquor business.”

“Fifty years ago it was pretty popular around here,” Carolina said, “and it hasn’t exactly died out since.  Moonshiners set up their stills out in the woods and they can be pretty protective of their business and their product.  Even if the stills aren’t active anymore it doesn’t mean the traps are gone.”

“Holy shit,” Wash said.  “Seriously?”

Carolina shrugged.

“That’s what I was always told when I was a kid,” she said.  “Along with a few graphic descriptions.  After that I pretty much stayed away.”  She put one last Band-aid on him and then slapped him on the back, ignoring his startled yelp.  “You’re all done, Wash.”

“Ow,” he said pointedly.

“Don’t be a baby, you’re fine,” she said dismissively as she started packing up the first aid kit.

“I was stabbed by a million tiny spikes.”

“Well, she’s the only one in the house with actual first aid training, so I’m inclined to believe her,” CT said cheerfully, jumping down from her seat at the breakfast bar.

“If you go back into the woods, Wash, stick to the trails,” Carolina said.  “There are a few nearby, I can point them out to you.”

“No thanks,” Wash said, wincing as he ran a still stinging hand through his blond hair.  “I think I’ll stay inside for a while.  I need to get back to my homework anyway.”

“Dinner first,” CT declared.  “I brought the stuff for stir-fry, Wash, we’re making your favorite.”

“Stir-fry is not my favorite,” Wash said flatly. 

“It is today,” she replied.  “We can’t let our poor lost boy scout go hungry.”

Wash sighed.

By the time he got back to his work a few hours had passed and Wash was dead tired.  His legs were already getting sore from his unexpectedly long jaunt over the mountain and he reminded himself to do some stretches before he went to bed so he would actually be able to walk in the morning.  Collapsing into his desk chair, he was startled by a clanking noise.

With a frown, Wash reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the knife and the lighter.  He flipped the zippo open and failed again to produce a spark.  He’d been planning to ask Carolina about it when he picked it up, but after his dive into the ditch full of thorns he had completely forgotten he had it.  Although, now that he thought about it, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.  If she had been telling the truth about staying out of the woods as a kid she wasn’t likely to know anything about that strange little hideout anyway.  The place had been abandoned a long time ago and it was way out in the middle of nowhere, who knew who had set it up or why.  They could be long dead.

Idly, he flicked the flint wheel again.

It lit.

Wash almost dropped it when the spark appeared, and he fumbled to catch it before his homework caught on fire, the shining blue lid falling shut with a snap that snuffed out the flame.  He stared at it.  He hadn’t thought the thing even had fuel in it, much less that it still worked.  Cautiously, he opened it and tried again.  And again.

Nothing.  Nothing at all.  No flame, no spark, no nothing.

No matter how many times he tried it, the lighter was dead.

It was a fluke.  Wash stared at it, glinting innocently in his hand, unsure why he felt so spooked.  It was old, it was bound to be a little messed up, rusted or broken in such a way that it would only sporadically throw out sparks, lighting only once every ten times or twenty.  When it lit was a coincidence, it didn’t mean anything.  Neither did the sudden staleness of the air, or the hair rising on the back of his neck, the return of that feeling he got sometimes when he woke in the night and couldn’t tell over the noise he made with his own startled breathing if there was something else in the room, a nightmare that had come back with him from his dreams.

He wasn’t dreaming now.

Wash stood abruptly, and picking CT’s knife off his desk he took both it and the lighter and shoved them into his bedside drawer.  He shook his head and laughed nervously.  That hike was supposed to help him work off his stress but it felt like it had just made everything worse.  Getting lost and then almost run over hadn’t really been the best thing for his nerves.  He backed away, wishing he knew what he could do but coming up blank.

In the end he grabbed his pencil and the star charts off his desk and took them downstairs.  Maybe one of the others could help him work it out, they were smart and at least one of them had probably taken the class.  It was his best bet if he wanted to finish the assignment, he told himself.  It had nothing to do with wanting to leave the room.

Nothing at all.

 

*

 

Night in the mountains came in on a cool breeze and a rustle of leaves, the sky fading to black and studded with glittering stars.  This far out into the countryside the light pollution of the town barely registered, the heavens and all its brilliance on display as though someone had spilled an uncountable number of tiny diamonds over a black velvet cloth.  Standing on the balcony outside his room, North felt like he could see the whole universe. 

When he’d come home from a late dinner with his sister he had discovered most of the household crowded around the coffee table in the living room, arguing over Wash’s astronomy homework.  Wash himself had looked a little frustrated, but not unhappy about it.  North had joined in on the fun, but he had to admit after a few minutes that he wasn’t much help.  In the end he’d just gone back to his room, but the balcony beckoned and he found himself outside gazing at the real stars, so much more beautiful than the scattered black dots on the charts.

It was getting late, and North had classes to get to in the morning.  He sighed, and took his hands off the ornamental railing.  The iron had gained a bite, the warmth of the summer sun leeched out of it by the encroaching night, and it was as good a sign as any that it was time to go inside.  Walking back into his room he left the door standing open in an invitation for the breeze, the quiet sound of the wind in the trees a soothing white noise while he readied himself for bed.

He put his jacket away and changed into his pajamas, turning off the closet light as he left.  Not particularly tired, he decided to get in a little late night reading before going to sleep.  Spotting the book he’d been reading lying on his dresser, he crossed the room and picked it up, all ready for bed.

North froze.

He kept his gaze on the book in his hands, stopping himself from looking up.  If he moved, he knew, it would be gone.  Every time he tried to get a good look it vanished like a mirage, fleeting and intangible.  He’d seen it before, several times since that first night, when he’d been drunk enough to chalk it up to imagination, an apparition only glimpsed from the corner of his eye and only ever caught in reflection.  So he kept still, taking in what bare details he could in his peripheral vision, trying to make sense of what he saw.

It was the pale face of a young child, peeking out from behind his closet door.

It was a boy, North thought, with dark hair and pale eyes, green or blue he couldn’t be quite sure.  His skin was so white it was almost translucent, as though he had been born in a dark room and never allowed to wander into the sun, and dark circles lay under his eyes.

North rarely saw more than that, the boy’s body usually hidden behind the closet door, only his pale fingers wrapped around the edge.  He never did anything, never seemed to move while North was looking, he simply peered out, watching with an expression half curious and half wary.  He didn’t appear every night, or with any noticeable pattern, as far as North could tell.  There was nothing that announced his presence, no ghostly noise or sudden chill, just a face in the mirror, sometimes there and sometimes not.  There might be times he was there that North never noticed at all.

Maybe he just hadn’t figured out a way to introduce himself.

“Hello again,” North said quietly.  Slowly he set the book back down on the dresser, not changing the line of his gaze but shifting his focus.  The boy remained perfectly still, like a frozen image, a photograph superimposed on reality.  He waited for a moment, but nothing happened, nothing changed.  North wasn’t frightened.  There was nothing scary about the anxious little face.  In fact, he was pretty sure the young phantom was just shy.

North trained his gaze on the lower right corner of the mirror, the reflection of a bland patch of hardwood flooring, and took a breath.

Sometimes shy kids were just afraid of taking the first step, he knew.  Sometimes they needed someone else to reach out first.

“My name is North,” he started.  Then he stopped and chuckled, realizing what he'd just said.  “Well, it’s not my name,” he corrected himself, “but it’s what all my friends call me.  I wouldn’t mind if you called me that, too.”

He stopped, waiting for a sign, maybe, but the room was still.  In fact the room was so quiet it took on that feeling of held breath, an expectation waiting to be met.

“I don’t know why you’re watching me,” he continued calmly.  “It can’t be very interesting.  Most of what I do in here is work.  I appreciate that you’ve never tried to hurt me or scare me, though.  You seem like a nice kid, so… I’m not worried about it.”

He hesitated.

“But I can’t help but wonder why you’re here,” he said at last, and the tension broke, the air in the room moving like a sigh.

There was a flicker in his peripheral, a movement he almost didn’t catch, not in the mirror but to the side, darting just behind him.  With it came a strange skittering noise, like the rustling of pages, quick and dry, with no obvious origin.  The strange little figure was still there, still motionless in the glass, and North felt a sudden chill as he wondered for the first time if the boy was the only guest he had.  On instinct, unable to stop himself, he turned to look.

The room was empty, as it always was.  Through the open balcony door a large leaf had ridden in on the evening breeze, twirling and twisting its way inside until it caught against his bedpost, the edges fluttering in the soft wind with a sound like old parchment.  North stared at it for a moment, and then walked over to pick it up.  It was unremarkable, just a leaf from the huge oak that overshadowed the driveway, and he huffed a laugh at himself for expecting anything different.  He brought it out to the balcony, throwing it back into the wind and watching it spiral down onto the front lawn.  Coming back inside, he made sure to shut the door behind him this time.

When he approached the mirror, North was unsurprised to find it empty, only the room and his own face reflected back at him.

He sighed.

“Goodnight, kiddo,” he said, and turned off the light.

 

*

 

There are many ways to come back to wakefulness.  The most pleasant is always a slow, languorous process, a state of lazy stretches and hazy relaxation.  Waking up piece by piece, consciousness strolling back after a good night’s sleep and settling in comfortably, is the best way to start the day.  On the opposite end of the scale is being awakened by nightmares, loud noise, or pain, startled into reality with a cruel jolt.  There is nothing quite so alarming as being forced from dreams in an instant of confusion, a cold splash of water over unsuspecting senses, adrenaline pumping panic into sluggish veins.  Even the most shocking way to wake, however, is not necessarily the most unsettling.

Maine woke in the living room, and he didn’t know how he got there.

Blinking blearily at the ceiling he ran a hand over his shaved head.  He was sprawled over the couch, feet slipped over the edge as though he had fallen there and simply stayed.  Maine shook his head quickly and sat up.  Instead of jarring loose the last haze of sleep as he had hoped it would, the movement threw a sharp spike of pain through his temple.  With the headache came unexpected nausea, and he was forced to put his head between his knees to stave it off. 

Maine groaned.  Had he been drinking?  The hangover was a bit of a clue, but he couldn’t remember.  He supposed that was one of the side-effects of getting blackout drunk, but he should at least remember the first beer, shouldn’t he?

After a few minutes of slow breathing, the pain and nausea abated slightly, and Maine pushed himself to his feet.  It was Monday morning, he recalled fuzzily, and he would need to get to class.  The light in the room was soft and cold, not the harsh rays of sunrise but the more forgiving light of the blue hour before dawn.  He still had a few hours before he had to leave.  Maybe he would feel a little better if he had some breakfast.

He stumbled into the kitchen and was surprised to find it already occupied.  Wyoming was sitting at the breakfast bar, glaring at a mug of coffee.  Maine grunted a hello on his way to the sink, but got no response.  He turned on the faucet and filled a glass with water before splashing a little on his face.  The cold felt good, a bracing shock that woke him further and made him realize that he’d felt hot, even in the cool morning air.

Maine threw together a small breakfast mostly made of things lying around; a few slices of toast, a couple of oranges, and four hard-boiled eggs.  He wasn’t really interested in cooking so early in the morning, so scraps would have to do.  Joining Wyoming at the breakfast bar, he started on his food and the two of them had their meager breakfast in the hush of the morning.

“Jesus, it’s like waking up in a funeral home.”

Maine turned to see York make his way into the kitchen, greeted by a sullen silence.

“Good morning to you, too,” he said as he passed by, going straight for the fridge.  No one answered him, and he turned around with a gallon of orange juice and an exasperated look.  “Dude, am I talking to myself here or what?  What’s the matter?  You guys forget how to talk or did you sleepwalk down here?”

“Morning,” Maine grumbled.

“Yeah, thanks Maine,” York said, rolling his eyes.  “Seriously, did somebody die?  Why is breakfast so somber today?”

“Some of us are very tired,” Wyoming said, finally speaking up.  He sounded unusually grumpy.  “Some of us had to stay up later than intended turning our rooms inside out.”

“What, did you lose another book?”

“Fortunately, no,” Wyoming sighed.  “This time it’s my blasted pens that seem to have vanished.”

“So?” York said, pouring a glass of juice and slotting some bread into the toaster.  “They’re just pens, right?  Get some new ones.  You can find a pack at the school store.”

“Hardly,” Wyoming responded, still glaring at his coffee.  “They are a very particular kind of fountain pen that I must order specially.  It’ll be at least four days before I can get another set delivered.”

“Okay, why?” York asked, less than impressed.  “Pens are pens, man, what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that they are _my_ pens,” was the less than friendly response, “and they are much easier to write with than the discount rubbish you buy at any old store.”

York’s toast popped up and he went to retrieve it, shaking his head all the way.  Maine didn’t really get it either, but he figured that if Wyoming wanted to waste his time losing his special pens it wasn’t really any of their business.

“What about you, Maine?” York asked as he started his breakfast.  “I mean, I know you tend to be a quiet guy anyway, but you look like something’s bothering you.”

Maine hesitated for a moment, but in the end he just shrugged.

“Tired,” he muttered, and it wasn’t quite a lie.  For all that he’d apparently slept in the living room, his body ached like he’d pulled an all-nighter, his head complaining in a steady pulsing rhythm that just made him want to go back to sleep.  He still felt hot and a little sluggish, sleep clinging to his limbs like warm molasses, weighty and sticky.

York nodded companionably. 

“Did you want some coffee?” he asked, hooking a thumb over his shoulder towards the pot.  “Looks like there’s enough left for one more.”

Maine grunted and York went to retrieve another mug.  Before he got back to the coffee maker, however, he paused.

“Uh…” he said slowly, picking something up off the counter.  “Hey, Wyoming, those pens you’re looking for, what do they look like again?  And don’t say they look like pens.”

“Black,” Wyoming answered.  “Gold edging.  Why?”

“Would they happen to be these pens?” York asked, turning around, a black pen twirling in his fingers.

Wyoming stared at them.

“How in the name of…?” he said, reaching out to take it.  York gave it to him and then retrieved two more from the countertop, handing them over as well.

“They were just sitting here by the fruit bowl,” he said, a smirk making its way onto his face.  “You really need to keep better track of your stuff.”

Wyoming just stared at the pens for a moment, his expression nonplussed and narrow-eyed.  They lapsed back into silence and this time York let it slide, too busy eating to care.  Eventually, he finished, dumping his plate in the sink.

“Well, I’m off,” he said, a lot more cheerful now that he’d eaten.  “You guys have a good day.  Try not to lose anything else, stuff seems to be just walking out of your room,” he added flippantly as he left.

Maine snorted and twisted to watch him go.  So did Wyoming, he noticed, turning that thoughtful, irritated gaze from his pens and on to York’s retreating back.  Maine finished his own breakfast and got up as well, thinking miserably of the day ahead.  As he passed by, he saw Wyoming’s grip tighten on the pens, still staring at the blank space where York had been.

“Suppose I’ll have to start locking my door, then” Wyoming muttered, and Maine almost laughed.

In this house a locked door wasn’t much of an obstacle.

 

*

 

When CT showed up at the house the next Tuesday most of Wash’s scratches had healed, and only a few of the deeper ones on his face and neck were still visible.

“Looking good, Wash,” she said, walking past him and into the living room.  She tossed her bag down on the sofa and then joined it, patting the space next to her.  “Come on, hurry up.”

“Hurry up and what?” Wash asked warily, sitting down.  “What are we doing?”

“Did you get your work done?” she asked, rummaging through her bag.

Wash shrugged.

“Most of it,” he said, glancing at the papers and books scattered over the coffee table.  More and more often he had started bringing his homework and reading down to the living room.  It didn’t always work out well, sometimes the others would want to use the television or just sit around and talk, but he still thought he got more done downstairs than in his own room.  It probably had something to do with trying to do work in the room where he slept.  Or rather, where he tried to sleep, he thought miserably, blinking back a yawn.

“Great,” CT said, snapping him out of his thoughts.  “Then fire up the Xbox, we’re playing Halo.”

“Halo?” Wash asked as she got up to put the disk in and sort out the controllers.  “Why?”

She gave him a look and handed him a controller.

“Because the new one comes out next week, Wash,” she said as though it were obvious.  “And an afternoon playing video games is a good way to cut stress.”

“I’m not sure getting my ass kicked is really the best way to feel better about life,” he said, remembering just how ruthless she could be at those games.

CT raised an eyebrow.

“That’s why we’re playing co-op,” she said.

“Oh,” Wash said.  “Right.  Well, I stand corrected, then.  Getting yelled at for fucking it up is definitely good for my stress levels.”

“Just play,” she said, rolling her eyes.  Wash shrugged and stopped arguing.  It couldn’t be worse than going back to his room and staring at the wall until dinner time.

In fact, CT was absolutely right.  Playing the game with her was the perfect stress relief and he was already feeling happier before even twenty minutes had gone by.  It felt good to immerse himself in a different world, one of spaceships and aliens, of armor that would keep him safe and problems he could just shoot down and move on from.

Assuming he could hit them, anyway.

“Your reaction time is shit,” CT complained.

“That’s what happens when you’re sleep deprived,” he replied, almost ready to throw the controller.

CT didn’t say anything for a moment and then paused the game, turning to give him a searching look.

“Are you okay, Wash?” she asked finally.  “I’ve never seen you look so tired.  Are classes really that bad?”

Wash sighed.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I just… haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Insomnia?”

He didn’t respond.  He didn’t want to lie to her, but he felt a little silly telling her that he still had nightmares as an adult.  Monsters in the closet and being afraid of the dark were the kind of thing people were supposed to get over by the time they were in college.

“Well, games are good for killing stress but you kind of look more like you need a nap,” she said.  “We can pick up where we left off this weekend.  You go upstairs and—”

“No!” he interrupted, a little too adamantly if the startled look she was giving him was anything to go by.  He cleared his throat, trying to will away the embarrassed flush that was creeping up his neck.  “I’m fine, CT,” he said.  “I’m just not going to beat this game any time soon.  We could go for a walk instead?” he suggested.

She laughed.

“Seriously?” she said.  “I’d have thought you’d be a little fed up with getting lost in the woods.”

“We won’t get lost,” Wash huffed.  “Carolina said there were trails.”

“Somehow I don’t think that’ll be enough,” she said.  “What were you even doing out there, anyway?  You never told us.”

“I was looking for the swimming hole,” he said.

“Swimming hole?” CT repeated.  “You just wandered off into the woods hoping you’d find a pond or something?”

“No,” he said defensively, “I didn’t just ‘wander off’, York said—”

“ _York_ said?” she cut him off.  “Tell me you did not get yourself lost in the woods and nearly die of exposure because of something York told you.”

“I didn’t _nearly die_ ,” Wash protested, “I was only lost for an hour or two before I found the road, and I would have been fine if you hadn’t tried to run me over!”

“That’s what happens when you’re standing in the middle of the street, Wash,” she said, waving him off.  “What did York tell you?”

“He said there was a swimming hole about a mile west of the house, with a waterfall and—what?”

CT was giving him a look steeped in amused pity.

“Wash,” she said patiently.  “When have you ever seen York go into the woods?”

“Well…” Wash said, trying to think back, and now that she mentioned it he hadn’t ever seen York express even the slightest interest in exploring the mountains around the house.  “Yeah, but…”

“When did he even tell you this?”

“…the morning after the party?” Wash said uncertainly, his memory a little hazy thanks to the hangover he’d had at the time and the continued lack of sleep since.  “At breakfast, I think.”

“You went down to breakfast and he just said ‘hey Wash, you should go into the woods and look for a waterfall, it’s really there, I swear’?”

“No…”

“Was this before or after he drew the moustache on you?”

Wash groaned.  He had forgotten about that.  CT obviously hadn’t, which wasn’t surprising considering how much she had laughed when he had come back downstairs after a quick attempt at a nap.  York hadn’t exactly owned up to it, but it wasn’t that hard to guess who was responsible.

“Was it just you and York when this happened or was someone else there?” she continued, her inner journalist coming out to play.  She had a very dogged tendency to go for all the little details until she had figured out exactly what had happened, something that would make her a great reporter one day but could be a little annoying when she decided to reconstruct the most humiliating instances in his recent memory.

“Just… no, wait, I think North was there?” he said, unsure.  “York told me they were talking about the swimming hole and I should check it out.”

CT appeared to roll this around in her mind for a moment before nodding.

“You probably walked in on the two of them discussing York’s relationship woes,” she said thoughtfully.  “I bet he was just trying to get rid of you.”

“York has relationship woes?”

“He thinks he does,” she snorted.  “I’m not sure Carolina even notices.”  She sighed, giving him a pat on the shoulder.  “You really shouldn’t believe everything people tell you, Wash, it’s going to get you in trouble.”

Wash leaned back into the sofa and wished he could sink all the way into the cushions and never come out again.  No wonder he’d gotten so lost if the place he was looking for wasn’t even real.

“It wasn’t a total waste of time, though,” he said a little sullenly.  He sat up again.  “I actually found something interesting out there.”

“You did?” CT asked.

“Yeah, it was some sort of… abandoned hideout or secret base or something,” he said.  “Out in the woods in this tiny ravine.  It was pretty cool.  I was going to ask Carolina about it but I forgot, and then she said she never went out there anyway.”

“Do you think you could find it again?”

“Probably not,” Wash admitted.  “I started off walking straight west from the house, but I was pretty much already lost by the time I found it.  We could go looking for it, though.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” she said.  “I am not letting you back out in the woods until I get you a whistle and a compass and you’ve proven you know how to use them.”

“Thanks,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “Well, if you don’t want to go for a walk then what should we do?”

“Why don’t we just get some dinner first and then maybe come back to the game,” she suggested, tossing her controller down and getting up.

“Yeah, alright,” Wash said, following, trying not to sigh in relief.  “I think we have some sodas, maybe the caffeine will help.”

He didn’t really care what they did, as long as it was downstairs.

 

*

 

“She could stand to be a little less reckless,” North said as he packed his books up for the night.  “But if she wanted my input I’m sure she’d tell me.”

Around him the room stayed still and silent, but North paid it no mind.  He continued to shuffle through his homework, stuffing papers into notebooks so they wouldn’t be forgotten and trying to remember which books he needed for class the next day.

“She was always like that as a kid, too,” he continued.  “She had such a reputation after a while that whenever she did try subtlety it would go completely unnoticed.  No one ever expected she could be anything but brash and loud.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much trouble we’d get into because of it.”

It had been about a week since North started doing this, addressing the empty air as though it was listening, and while on the surface of things nothing appeared to have changed, he thought he felt a shift in the atmosphere.  He had only spotted the little boy a few times since, and it was hard to tell from the oblique angle he was forced to observe from, but he thought the kid’s expression might be a little less wary, a little more intrigued.

“We ended up with a very good routine of good cop, bad cop after a while,” North went on.  “Sometimes it pays to be known as the responsible one.”

He felt the real breakthrough came when he had started, idly one day when speaking his thoughts aloud, to talk about his sister.  He couldn’t describe it properly, even to himself, but he thought there was a difference in the tension in the room.  It was then that he remembered that the very first time he had spotted the boy was after the party, when he had been tucking South in to keep her from being a danger to herself.  The timing could be a coincidence, maybe a side effect of his being more than a little drunk as well, but he had a gut feeling that said it was significant.  So he kept talking about her, not that he minded much.  South always did seem to generate the best stories, and the presence in the room seemed more attentive, somehow, more interested when he spoke of her.

“Of course, that was all before we started college and she decided to stay as far away from me as possible,” he said with resigned amusement.  He zipped up his bag and then just looked at it for a moment, his thoughts far away.  “We’ve always been something of a set,” he murmured, “but… I guess she wanted a little time on her own.”

He sighed and the room seemed to sigh with him, a creak of the wooden structure that sounded almost concerned.  He smiled.

“It’s alright,” he said.  “That’s just little sisters for you.  She’ll come around when she’s figured out who she is by herself.  You can’t push that sort of thing.  Sometimes you just have to wait for the people you care about to come back to you.”

North put the bag down and crossed to the dresser, pulling out his pajamas.  As he did he gave a fleeting glance to the mirror, as he always did these days, on the off chance he found an audience.

He paused, and his breath caught in his throat.

The little boy was there, motionless as always, static on the glass with no sign of even the slightest twitch or movement.  It was the most unnerving thing about him, to be honest, the feeling of presence and the knowledge that he was not alone in the empty room were nothing compared to the staring, unblinking gaze and the uncanny stillness of a child that didn’t appear to breathe.  Even after more than two weeks North still caught himself waiting, watching out of the corner of his eye until his own muscles seemed to freeze and ache in sympathy and his eyes began to water, as though if he just looked long enough he would catch that movement, if only he didn’t blink. 

It had never worked before.  The boy was so still that he might as well be painted onto the glass.  He had never seemed to change.

North stared at the mirror.

The boy’s position was different.  He had moved.

Not while he was watching, of course, that was too much to hope for, but instead of his usual place in the closet, peering out from behind the door like it was a shield, the little boy was crouched closer, just behind the corner of North’s bed.  One hand was curled around the wooden bedpost, one pale knee poking out, and he still seemed to hide, little of his body and only half of his face visible.  Even so, it was clear as day, and North had to force himself to breathe when he saw it.

The little boy was smiling.

 

*

 

There is a point between waking and sleep when reality blurs.  Between the two states is not a sharp line, but a haze, when time stretches taught like a piano wire and every breath is a vibration that sings.  In the dead of night, in that endless moment on the brink of slipping inwards into a different world, the mind whispers.  There is a name just out of reach, murmured in the dark, the quiet notes of a far off laugh or sob.  There is a word, repeated yet inaudible, unknowable, an echo that goes on too long and still never quite resolves to be heard.  The room sighs and creaks, and in this moment the world whispers.

At the edge of sleep is a gateway to the mind and the soul, and sometimes other souls creep in.

Wyoming stared stiffly at the ceiling, eyes not wandering, breathing quiet.  It was commonplace to hear voices when one drifted off, nothing special.  Everyone had heard their name called from the mysterious darkness of their own minds once or twice in their life.  It was a curious thing, but nothing new or sinister, the same sort of half-asleep nonsense that caused a dreaming person to move to take a step in reality, waking themselves with the unexpected jerk of their own leg.  It was nothing to be concerned about.

Darkness didn’t creep or fall in Wyoming’s room, it prowled.  When the sun went down behind the trees west of the house the light fled and the dark moved in like a slinking cat, silent and predatory.  Twilight fell early in his the northeast corner, and with it came the groans and mumblings to be expected of any old structure.  The pipes in the walls shifted and complained, and the house settled in for the night with a sound like footsteps overhead.

Every night as he lay in his bed looking up at the smooth ceiling the room closed around him, the wind in the trees outside not quite a whisper, not quite a sigh.  Shadows stretched across the woodwork in the faint blue of the moonlight, the only light the room ever seemed to drink in, no matter the phase.  Branches painted themselves in stark detail in the impossible light of the new moon, reaching and grasping with skeletal fingers, and outside the trees whispered, murmured, a voice in his ear too close and too far away.

It was nothing to be afraid of.

Wyoming hiked the blankets over his shoulder and rolled to face the door, sturdy, strong, locked tight.

“Knock, knock,” he mumbled, his eyes drifting shut.

_Who’s there?_

 

 


	3. Poltergeist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that if you have triggers or are worried about content, please READ THE WARNINGS. This is the chapter where they start to matter. Warnings specific to this chapter include (SPOILERS): manipulation, nightmares, graphic depictions of violence and injury, eye trauma, blood and gore, involuntary commitment, ableist language, self-harm, suicide/suicide attempt.
> 
> If you are worried about triggers or are squeamish but want to read anyway and just want to skip the rough stuff, the particularly graphic scene is the one where Wash drops his mug. You can skip to the next scene and still have a pretty good idea of what's going on, although there are other potential triggers later in the chapter as well.
> 
> Chapter Four will be posted on September 30th. Thank you for reading!

 

 

 

It had happened again.

Wyoming hunted through his satchel, face twisted into a fierce scowl.  In the time between setting his bag down in his bedroom, going to eat dinner, and coming back up, his notes had vanished.  They had been there before he left the room, he was absolutely sure of that.  He had spent all afternoon at the library pouring over books that weren’t allowed to leave the building, taking notes by hand that he had planned to transcribe and put into his laptop once he made it home.  He had been careful, so careful to put the pages, loose-leaf but secured tightly with a paperclip, into his bag, sandwiched firmly between his copy of _The Tempest_ and his other research books.  They had been there, he knew that without a doubt.  He had left the notes in his bag and his bag in his room.

And yet they were gone.

A lot of things had gone missing, lately.  His pens, his books, his notes, nothing seemed to stay where he put it.  Every day there seemed to be something new that had disappeared with no explanation.  He had probably spent hours in the last few days looking for things that were not where he knew he had left them, and every time they appeared again somewhere else in the house, scattered carelessly on countertops or coffee tables, hiding under the dining room table or wedged into the sofa cushions.  Hours of time wasted, hours of research lost while engaging in this insane and pointless scavenger hunt.  There was never any reason these things should go missing, and there was never any reason they should reappear when and where they did.

It was as if they got up and left on their own, like York had said.

Wyoming threw the satchel onto his bed.

Objects didn’t just vanish.  If things were disappearing, were being misplaced, it was because someone had moved them.  Wyoming might be older than the others living in the house but he was not senile, he knew where he put his things. 

 _Someone is moving them_ , he thought grimly.

Wyoming turned abruptly and headed for the door.

His notes were missing, but instead of spending a useless hour searching the room for them, this time he would look elsewhere first.

The upstairs hallway was dark in the late evening, the sun already set and twilight fading fast.  Someone should have turned the chandelier on by now, but they were probably all busy in their own rooms, doing their own work with their books and pens that never disappeared, or getting to sleep early instead of uselessly searching for things that had no business being so hard to find.  Wyoming stepped into the dim hallway and the darkness closed in around him like a cloak, weighty and burdensome, dragging him down.  He almost stumbled in the low light before catching his balance and pulling the door shut behind him.  Taking the old fashioned key from his pocket, he locked it tight and twisted the knob, just to be sure.

He always locked his door these days, even if he had only just stepped out for a moment.  It was a habit he had fallen into that he was no longer sure was pure paranoia.  Of course, even with the door locked nothing seemed to change.

Standing in the darkness Wyoming tried to think of what to do.  Whenever his things went missing they invariably turned up downstairs, usually in the living room or the kitchen.  He had never been invited into the others’ rooms, just like they had never been invited into his _,_ and he didn’t know if they also kept their doors locked, wouldn’t know where to start looking even if they were open.  No doubt some of them were sitting in their rooms right at that moment, and he couldn’t exactly barge in.  He needed to act with more subtlety, for now.

Searching the common areas was the obvious first step.  He made his way down the stairs and into the living room, checking surfaces as he went.  The notes had been clipped together in a simple stack of papers, so there was no telling how many places they could be, stuck behind or under furniture, shut in drawers, they could be almost anywhere.

They appeared to be nowhere.

Twenty minutes later, Wyoming had still not found even a single sheet of his notes.  He had searched the living room and the kitchen, given the dining room a look as well, and yet there was nothing to find.  Wyoming sighed into the quiet of the early night.  They had to be somewhere.  He had searched the whole first floor.

His eyes turned to the staircase and the hidden basement door.

Crossing the foyer in the growing darkness, Wyoming threaded his fingers into the concealed handle and pulled.  The door came open with a sound that was not a creak but a whisper, a dry sigh as the air displaced and seemed to rush downward into the inky blackness.  He tried the light, but nothing happened, the switch broken or the bulb burned out.  Peering into the interminable murkiness of the stairwell, he tried to remember if there was anything in the basement of note aside from the laundry, anything his papers could be hidden behind or under.  The darkness that stretched before him seemed almost too full for the small space, like it was spreading into the hallway instead of shrinking back from the meager light infiltrating from the outside.  He wouldn’t be able to see much down there, and he didn’t remember the layout of the place very well.

Wyoming’s grip tightened on the door.

There was no reason at all his notes should be down there.  He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gone into the basement.  He hadn’t taken his notes there.  He hadn’t even taken his notes out of his room.

Wyoming shut the door and the sound of it slamming echoed through the foyer, bouncing off the staircase, rattling across the high, thin windows over the front door and into the far-off vaulted ceiling.  It sounded like a declaration.  It sounded like a promise.

He was done with this.  He didn’t know who was doing this or why, but he had had enough.  _How dare they?_

One way or another, he was going to put a stop to it.

 

 

 

Maine lurched upright, the sound of a door slamming downstairs startling him back into full awareness.  He rubbed a hand over his eyes and glanced at the clock on his desk, the red letters shining back a number that told him it was far too early for him to be dozing off.  Miserably, he took another look at the books spread out in front of him.  Spanish again.  It was always Spanish.  He had zoned out while staring at the incomprehensible jumble of letters, the nonsense on the page swimming as he tried again and again to make sense of it, to make it work. 

Sometimes he wondered if it was even worth the effort.  He tried so hard to get it right but it seemed like it was always just a little bit off, and even when he managed to finish the assignments his participation grades brought him back into failing territory.  In too many of his classes that was a problem, like not being a chatterbox was somehow the worst thing possible.  People looked at him and thought he was a stupid brute, and he could never prove them wrong, could never seem to voice his thoughts in a way that would convince them otherwise.

Maine was tired of trying.

Wash always said that if you weren’t getting anything done you might as well take a break, that coming back to something later with fresh eyes was better than simply staring at it until you fell asleep.  Maine was pretty sure that philosophy could end up being something of a rabbit hole.  Never getting anything done because you weren’t going to anyway was a decent enough excuse for the lazy, a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Wash always seemed to get his work done, though, even if he had started looking a little worn out lately.  Maine wasn’t usually the type to shirk his work, either, but he was getting frustrated. 

It might not be a bad idea to just relax for a little bit.  He had been attempting to finish the same assignment for so long that his head was starting to hurt, and he could barely tell if the words on the page were Spanish or Greek.  Twilight had come and gone but the room still felt pleasantly warm, the fading rays of a brilliant sunset flickering in his memory, soothing and calm.  It was almost like the room had held onto that last light, captured in far corners and reflective surfaces, dancing across his vision when he closed his eyes.  It was beautiful, and he could feel it lulling him away, his head nodding in that inescapable assent to sleep.

Maine leaned forward and lay his head down on his arms.

It couldn’t hurt to take a nap.

 

*

 

Wash jerked awake in the middle of the night.

He lay in the dark, staring wide-eyed at the bland white ceiling and listening to the chorus of his own ragged breathing and racing heartbeat.  As always he was unsure what had woken him, or why, his nightmares unremembered even as they seemed to get worse every night.  Pulling the blankets up around his chin he shivered, trying to convince himself that a nightmare was all it was.  Eventually his heart calmed and his breathing slowed, but as they did he realized that the noise hadn’t stopped.  The uneven sound of hitching breath still filled the room, even as his own caught in his throat.

It wasn’t coming from him.

The sound was hesitant and wet, a sob choked back with little success.  It was a wretched, pained noise that seemed to echo through him, reverberating in his mind and sticking in his throat, which ached in sympathy.  Wash stayed still, unwilling to even breathe, and shut his eyes tight.  In the darkness behind his eyes the sound seemed somehow louder, as though closing them had beckoned it closer, and while before it had come from everywhere and nowhere now it stayed still, focused, the intermittent breath so suddenly intimate that he could almost feel it move across his cheek.

Too afraid to move or make a sound, Wash lay paralyzed until his lungs burned, his mind conjuring a thousand terrifying things that reached for him unseen.  At any moment he might feel an icy touch, a sudden grip on his face or his neck, cold like the grave or maybe slick and sticky, heavy with the scent of copper and freshly turned earth.  It was too late for him to run, the moment he closed his eyes he was caught.  All he could do was wait, wait for that last shock while his body screamed for air and whoever or whatever made that sound reached out for him, wait, frozen and aching and helpless, wait in the dark in the prison of his own mind, wait for it to end.

Wait.

Wash gasped and threw himself out of bed.

He took in great gulps of air, his chest heaving with it, and looked around wildly, still so sure there was something there, just out of sight.  He could feel it, his skin prickling and the hair on his arms standing straight up, but as his breathing slowly calmed and his heartbeat fell from its frantic race, he realized that no attack had come.  There were no monsters under the bed leaping out at him, no cackling ghouls or boogeymen.  The room was quiet, only his paranoia there to keep him company.

Slowly, Wash sat back on the bed.  Taking a shuddering breath he looked around, double checking, making sure.

There was nothing there.

False awakening, he remembered.  The less rest he got the more research he seemed to do on sleep disorders and the terrors the mind could create for itself.  A person could dream that they were awake, the feeling so real and so vivid that as the vision of the world around them slowly proved to be just so slightly wrong it would turn into the most intense of nightmares.  There was nothing quite like the uncertainty of whether or not it was real.  A false awakening could lead to dreams within dreams, nightmares that seemed unending, and even the persistent feeling after a true awakening of still being lost in that maze.

The room was silent around him, the only sounds the rustle of his clothes as he breathed and the drumming of his heartbeat in his ears.  The windows were closed, the door and closet shut, and he was alone.

Wash put his head in his hands and began to shake.

 

*

 

He came to in the hallway.

That was the only way he could really describe it, not a slow awakening or even a jolt back to reality, but just sudden awareness after a murky haze.  Not like he had been sleeping, but _out_ , his consciousness coming back after some inexplicable absence.  Had he been drinking?  Had he been sleepwalking?

Maine stared at the doorknob in his hand and slowly loosened his grip.  He took one long, deliberate step back and rubbed at his temples.  His head ached again, a throbbing pain that seemed to spread through him in a way he had never experienced before.  It was not the ache of overused muscle or strained joints, but a fire on his nerves that he didn’t understand.  Even as he thought about it the feeling faded, leaving him standing confused in the upstairs hallway with no idea of how he’d gotten there.

He looked around.  The light streaming through the windows over the foyer had the bright shine of late afternoon, slanted and dragging dark shadows behind it.  He tried to think back, to remember what he had been doing that would bring him here, but his mind came up blank.  The last thing he could clearly recall was doing his homework, everything after that was a blur.  He wasn’t even sure for how long.

Maine took another step back, a feeling of cold uncertainty crawling into his bones.  What had he been doing?

“Maine?”

He turned around to see Wash coming out of his room, shutting the door behind him.  He looked tired, his blond hair a disheveled mess and dark circles beginning to form under his eyes.

“Hey man,” he said, stifling a yawn.  “I haven’t seen you all day.  What have you been up to?”

Maine grunted, wishing he knew the answer to that question.  Wash didn’t seem to mind the nonresponse, he was already looking past Maine, brow furrowing.

“Did you need to talk to Wyoming for something?” he asked curiously.  “I don’t think he’s here right now, he’s usually at the library on Friday afternoons.”

“Friday?” Maine repeated, a little shiver running through him like a tiny electric shock.  He wasn’t sure anymore, but he had thought it was Thursday.

“Yeah, I know,” Wash snorted.  “He’s in the library almost every day, but I think he had some sort of room reserved on Fridays where he looks over old parchments or something.  He won’t be back for at least another hour. …what?” 

Maine was giving his friend a scrutinizing look.  Wash really must be more tired than he thought.  He was usually so good at deciphering Maine’s grumbles and growls, he hadn’t misunderstood so badly since well before the summer, last year when they barely knew each other and Wash still thought the States were playing some sort of joke on him and would drop him as soon as they got to the punch line.  At some point he had seemed to get the picture, realize that they really had taken an awkward freshman into the group just because of a quirk with names and they planned to stick to their guns, and after that it was like he made an effort to fit in.  Maine wasn’t sure how he did it, but Wash almost always understood him.  He was probably the easiest person to talk to in the whole house.

He also looked like he was about to fall over.

Maine shook his head and grunted, gesturing at Wash.

“Who, me?” Wash said, clearly blinking back another yawn.  “I’m just headed downstairs for a coke, I need a little extra caffeine.” 

Maine narrowed his eyes and stepped forward.  Clearly what Wash needed was not more caffeine but a very long nap.  Taking his friend by the arm, Maine began dragging him back to where he came from, to his bedroom.

“What?  Hey!  What are you doing?” Wash yelped, startled.  He began to struggle, but he wasn’t much of a match against the athlete’s bulk, and Maine pushed on doggedly.  Wash’s head whipped around to look at the door they were headed for and his voice cracked into that familiar high pitched squawk.  “No! Wait!”

Maine stopped short, realizing suddenly that Wash’s tone carried real panic.  He gave him a concerned look, but let go of his arm.  Instead he waved a hand towards Wash’s bedroom pointedly. 

“You need a nap,” he said.

Wash stared at him for a moment and then slumped.

“I know,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair and making even more of a mess of it.  “I just… not right now, alright?  I… I need to stay awake a little longer before bed or I’ll…” he hesitated.  “I’ll mess up my whole sleep schedule,” he settled on.

Maine frowned.  There was something off about the way he said it, but unlike Wash he’d never been very good at picking up on the subtler cues of conversation.  Reluctantly, he let it slide.

“Maybe we could just play some games or something, instead?” Wash suggested hopefully.

He wasn’t sure that was the best idea, but Wash looked so miserable it was hard to say no.  Maine huffed and jerked his head towards the stairs, and Wash brightened a little.

“Thanks,” he said, sounding far more relieved than he should. 

Maine rolled his eyes and put a hand on Wash’s head, ruffling his ridiculous hair until the already messy blond strands became a bird’s nest of tangles.  With a grumbled protest Wash batted his hand away and made for the stairs.  Maine followed with a smirk, resolutely thinking of video games and an afternoon with his friend, and not the scratches he had just noticed on his hands, a hundred stinging cuts he didn’t remember the origins of that hadn’t been there the day before. 

He needed a distraction.

 

*

 

Carolina came home from her run a little later than usual on Saturday morning.  With no soccer practice or classes she was determined to enjoy the weather before fall hit in earnest, and when she reached the house after her run to the road she had taken one long breath of the pleasantly crisp air and turned right back around for another lap.  It was more leisurely, a test of endurance rather than speed, a run through the woods for the pure joy of moving.  It was the best way to spend her morning, and when she finally came into the kitchen for breakfast her muscles ached in a way that made her feel alive.

York was at the counter, clearly waiting for her if the empty plate in front of him was anything to judge by.  He was leaning on one arm and poking listlessly at the crumbs that littered the countertop, but he brightened when she passed him, heading to the sink for a glass of water.

“Morning, Carolina,” he said.

“Morning, York,” she replied before taking a long satisfying drink.

“You have any plans for the day?” he asked, a little too eagerly.  Carolina eyed him curiously.

“Nothing unusual,” she said.  “I wanted to get some of my work out of the way before practice tomorrow.”

“Studying,” York said, visibly deflating.  He flicked at a particularly large crumb, sending it sailing to the floor.  “Right.”

“That can’t be surprising to you,” Carolina said, bemused.

“Nah,” he responded.  “I was just hoping we could do something together today, something more interesting than sitting in our own rooms staring at books.”

“York, we’re barely a month into the semester, you can’t be burned out already.”

“It’s not the studying I’m avoiding,” he muttered.

Carolina frowned.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, genuinely confused.

For a moment York didn’t say anything.  Then he heaved a frustrated sigh and shoved the plate away.

“Alright, you know what, I don’t care if this makes me sound like a lunatic,” he declared.  “I can’t be the only one.”

“The only one who sounds like a lunatic?” she said wryly.  “Because I’m pretty sure you’ve got that locked down for now.”

York ignored her comment, shaking his head and then catching her gaze, his blue eyes intense.

“Carolina,” he said, “do you ever feel like you’re being watched?”

Carolina froze.  She didn’t know why but something about the question, the seriousness in his expression, made her lock up.  The kitchen fell into silence as he waited for her to answer, and out of the corner of her eye the shadows of the trees moving on the walls seemed altogether too close.  The sunlight threaded through the leaves in shades of green and gray, and they rustled in the morning breeze with a sound like a whisper.

There were no shadows that were darker than they should be, she told herself firmly.  There was nothing unusual about them at all.

“Carolina?”

“No,” she said, her voice strong in the face of York’s growing concern.  “Don’t be ridiculous, York,” she continued, nodding to North as he walked in.  “Who would be watching us?”

“Are we talking about the ghost?” North said casually.

Carolina and York both turned and stared.  North raised an eyebrow at their expressions.

“So you’ve seen him, too?” he asked.  “I thought I was the only one.”

“You’ve _seen_ it?” York said incredulously.  “I just felt like I was being watched!  I can never figure out where it’s coming from, how did you manage to see it?”

“Have you tried looking in reflections?  I’ve only ever managed to spot him in mirrors.  He doesn’t seem to like being looked at directly.  I think he might be shy.”

“Shy?” York repeated, frowning.  “Really?  That doesn’t sound—”

“What are you two talking about?” Carolina demanded.

They stopped and York turned back to her, running a hand through his hair.

“Carolina,” he said, with the air of someone braced for impact, “I hate to break this to you, but your house is haunted.”

Carolina scowled.

“Not this again,” she said.  “York, I swear to God, just because the place is old and needs some paint—”

“What?  No, I’m serious this time!” he protested.  Behind him North moved into the kitchen, making for the coffee pot.  “I’ve been dealing with this for weeks, I thought I was going crazy!  Whenever I’m alone in my room, studying, you know, I can feel it watching me.  Every goddamned day, like there’s someone just over my shoulder.  There’s never anything there, though.”

“York,” Carolina growled.

“It’s even moved shit around!” York barreled on.  “I couldn’t find my highlighters one night and then I left to take a break and when I got back they were right there on my desk!”  He slumped a little, frowning at the countertop.  “Y’know, whoever it is, he’s kind of a taskmaster, never seems to be happy unless I’m working.  I’m starting to think he’s a bit of an asshole.”

“That’s enough, York,” she said, glaring, “it’s not funny.”

“Who’s joking?” he responded, face serious.  “Ask North, he just said he’s seen it.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure we’re talking about the same thing,” North said, coming back to the counter with his coffee and a frown.

“What?  Oh, come on, dude, back me up here!” York complained.

“I’m not disagreeing with you, York, I just don’t think we’re talking about the same ghost,” North clarified. 

“Not the same?” York repeated.  “You mean you think there’s more than one?”

“There aren’t _any_ ,” Carolina said, interrupting them.  “The house is not haunted and I’m tired of hearing it.  You’re being ridiculous, both of you.”

York and North exchanged a glance.

“Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you that we’d both come to that conclusion independently?” North pointed out.

“Yeah, just because you haven’t seen anything doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” York said a little sullenly.

Carolina rolled her eyes.

“You two are forgetting that I grew up in this house,” she said.  “I lived here for _years_ , and I never saw anything strange.  No one else has lived here since the Director moved out when I was fifteen.  It wasn’t haunted then and it isn’t haunted now.”

In the ensuing silence Carolina thought that maybe she had finally gotten her point across until she saw York bite his lip.  She sighed.

“What, York?”

He hesitated.

“Nothing,” he said, “just…”

“Spit it out,” she said crossly.  There was only so much of this nonsense that she could take, and it was starting to scratch at her last nerve.  She didn’t even know why the idea irritated her so much, just that the very suggestion made her skin itch.

York hesitated again, looking like he was aware that she wouldn’t take his next statement well.

“Well…” he said slowly, “you said you had an imaginary friend, right?”

Carolina stared at him blankly and the room seemed to constrict around her, a weight on her chest and a pressure against her eyes, an ache she didn’t quite understand.  Her head felt fuzzy and overfull, and she resisted the urge to shake it to make the feeling go away.  In that instant she almost understood what he had been saying about being watched, the feeling of attention turned unflinchingly on her, expectant.

York was looking at her.

“What does that have to do with this?” she practically snarled. 

“I’m just saying,” York said, his hands up in an insultingly placating gesture, “that if you were talking to invisible people as a kid—”

“I said _imaginary,_ not invisible,” she snapped.  “Just what the hell are you getting at?  You think I spent my childhood talking to dead people?”

“So you did see something,” North said thoughtfully.  “What did your friend look like?  Was it a little boy?”

“I don’t remember,” she ground out between clenched teeth, shaking off the fleeting memory of dark hair and troubled eyes.  It was wrong, what they were suggesting, and even entertaining the idea felt like an insult to her childhood, and the lengths she’d gone to in putting it behind her.  “And it doesn’t matter anyway,” she insisted.  “There were no ghosts.  Just a little girl who wanted someone to talk to and take care of her and dreamed up the best thing she could think of.  _That’s all._ ”

“Come on, Carolina,” York said in exasperation, “can’t you even consider that we might be right?”

“You’re being paranoid and irrational,” she replied in an approximation of calm.  “And I’m not going to listen to it.”

“How can you be so sure?” North asked, far less combatively.  Carolina took a deep breath and marshaled her thoughts, pushing away the sudden and persistent vice on her insides.

“Because I lived here for thirteen years,” she said staunchly.  “And I stopped believing that someone would take care of me when I was seven.”

“Jesus,” York muttered, his head in his hands.

“If my imaginary caretaker was a _ghost_ ,” she said scathingly, eyes narrowed, “it would still be here, wouldn’t it?  It wouldn’t have fucking left me here alone when I was still a kid.  There sure as hell haven’t been any exorcisms in this house, I can tell you that.  So why disappear?  Where did he go?  _Nowhere_ ,” she stressed, “because there were never any ghosts in this house, just a lonely kid who couldn’t ignore reality forever.  It isn’t haunted and it never was.”

“Maybe he got tired of the attitude and fucked off to the attic,” York grumbled.

He probably didn’t mean for her to hear it, the statement unkind and muffled by his hands, but she did.  At once she felt the strange pressure release, as though the shock of the words broke a seal that had kept it bottled up, but instead of relief in its wake came a strange numbness.  An inexplicable cold crawled through her, goose bumps following, and her fingertips tingled and went dead.

“Carolina?” North said quietly.  She had no idea what sort of expression was on her face, but it had caught his attention.  York looked up then too, confusion flickering through his eyes at whatever it was he saw.  “Are you alright?”

Carolina licked her lips and tried to ignore the frozen numbness creeping up her spine.

“What attic?” she asked.

 

 

 

Wyoming tore through the room, his hands shaking. 

When he had come home the night before he had been tired from his afternoon and evening at the library, and he’d barely stopped to have a bite to eat before heading to sleep.  He had dropped his bag in the corner by his desk and then thrown himself into bed with little attention to the room around him, already half asleep and not keen on the details of his surroundings.  He had planned to spend his Saturday typing his notes into his laptop and doing further reading on some of the articles he had printed at the library, but when he awoke in the morning he discovered a problem.

His laptop was gone.

He had left it on the desk when he went to campus on Friday; he didn’t like taking it with him because it was an old thing, one that had seen him all the way through both college and grad school, and it was rather heavy and delicate for the times.  He couldn’t remember if it had been there when he returned, hadn’t really bothered to look at it before turning in.  All he knew was that it wasn’t there when he woke up.  It was gone.  Misplaced.

_Taken._

Wyoming clenched his fists as the word flitted across his mind.

The notes that went missing on Thursday had never reappeared.  Part of the reason he had spent such a long, grueling time at the library on Friday was because he was redoing them, going through the same books as the day before until finally he could start something new.  Through persistence he had managed to make up for lost time but all of that had been for nothing.  The laptop contained the bulk of his notes, his outlines, his _research_ , and as long as it was missing there was little he could do.  Standing in the middle of his room, now ransacked and messy in the mid-morning light, he felt frustrated and useless.  Everything he’d done, the culmination of _years_ of work, gone.

Under the sound of his agitated breathing he could hear a low murmur coming up through the floorboards.  He heard it sometimes during the day when he tried to work in the solace of his room instead of the far noisier study spaces on campus.  His bedroom was situated directly above the kitchen, and the indistinct sound of far-off conversation sometimes drifted up from below, an indecipherable hum of muffled words.  Outside the wind kicked up and the trees whispered with it, a susurrus that moved in a chorus that sounded almost like a word.

_Sabotage._

No, he thought angrily.  They were his friends.  It wasn’t malicious, they just didn’t understand.  They were young still and didn’t appreciate the value of hard work, but they wouldn’t directly try to destroy his life.  Would they?  He looked at the mess around him and thought of Wash and Maine’s persistent and noisy study breaks, of North’s unruffled nonchalance, of York and his flippant attitude and Carolina’s constant willingness to indulge them. 

They were all friends here, he thought bitterly, but some of them had always been outsiders, just an old man lingering on the outskirts of the group, the perfect target for an inconsiderate prank.  Moving his things, telling him it was his own forgetfulness, it was the kind of thing a person might do if they wanted to drive someone crazy, not caring for the stress they caused, finding his gradual descent into frazzled anxiety and slow madness amusing and all the while not realizing how much damage they had done, not realizing that there would be repercussions.  A prank that had gone too far would always have fallout, regardless of the original intent.  And they _had_ gone too far.

He could no longer delude himself that this had been anything but deliberate, whatever the intentions, but one thing continued to nag at him.  How had they gotten in?  He had locked his door consistently for the last week, and whatever else he was unsure of, he knew it had been locked tight both when he left on Friday morning and when he came back that evening.

The voices beneath him swelled, an argument perhaps, gaining in volume until one in particular stood out with sudden clarity and everything clicked.

 _York_.

York was a locksmith.  He was proud of it, liked to test his skill at any chance he got, liked to brag about being able to crack any lock he got his hands on if given enough time.  He also always seemed to be the one who found Wyoming’s lost things, always in the right place at the right time, always there to notice them when no one else did, always there to point them out and make Wyoming feel like a fool.  York was the only one who could have done this, he’d been playing tricks on Wyoming for weeks, and _he took the laptop_.

Wyoming took a deep breath.  He had no proof.

But he knew where to look.

Leaving the mess behind him he strode determinedly into the hall and made his way down the stairs.  He stopped for a moment in the foyer, listening to the rise and fall of voices in the kitchen.  York, Carolina, and North, it sounded like, having a heated discussion, quite unusual for that group.  He didn’t much care what they were talking about, just that they were distracted and sounded like they would be for some time.  Wyoming turned to his right and made his way through the living room to the door at the back.

York’s room was unlocked.  Wyoming didn’t know if it was arrogance or simply forgetfulness, or maybe his inability to respect the meaning of a locked door led him to forgo them entirely.  Either way it didn’t matter.  The door was open, and nothing could stop him from finding his property and reclaiming it.  That done, he would put a stop to this.

Wyoming turned the knob and went inside.

 

 

 

“How can you _not remember_ that your house has an attic?” York asked as he led them out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Carolina glared at him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in the attic,” she said.  “My parents must have been worried I’d get lost up there or find something dangerous, maybe.  I don’t remember them even talking about it.”

“Maybe it was shut off before you moved in,” York said thoughtfully.

“Shut off?” North asked curiously as he followed the two of them onto the upstairs landing.

“You’ll see,” York said. 

As they rounded the bannister into the hallway a door opened at the end and a disheveled Wash stumbled out.  He looked terrible, not at all what you would expect from someone who had just woken up late on a Saturday.  There were dark smudges forming under his eyes, his face pale and his hair sticking up in all directions.  Still in his pajamas, he blinked at them blearily for a moment before trying to move past them, shuffling unsteadily by, his feet dragging in his fuzzy, gray cat-faced slippers.  North grabbed his shoulder to steady him before he could fall and tip over the edge of the balcony.

“You okay, Wash?” he asked.

Wash didn’t really answer, just nodded more times than necessary and continued on his way to the stairs, yawning as he went.

“He is going to fall down the stairs,” North said, shaking his head with a slight smirk.

“Hey Wash!” York called.  “We’re solving mysteries up here, you want to join in?”

Wash waved a hand at them without even looking back, mumbling something that might have been “coffee,” as he headed down.

“Suit yourself, man,” York shrugged.

“York,” Carolina said, directing his attention back to their current mission.

“Right,” he said.  He turned and brought them to the linen closet, opening the door.  Inside was an inky blackness, even the strong light of the late morning failing to illuminate more than a few meager inches before being swallowed up by the gloom.  It must have been because of the angle of the doorway, York told himself, although he believed it less with each passing second. 

The closet entrance gaped wide and he stepped inside after only a moment’s hesitation.  The others followed, the three of them pressing close in the tight space, and their breath seemed loud in his ears.  Inching towards the back, he brought them to the door.

“See?” he said.  “A door.  In a closet.”

“You don’t _know_ it’s to the attic, do you?” Carolina said, voice tight.

“I know it doesn’t go to Narnia,” he retorted.

“The tower’s on this side of the house,” North said thoughtfully.  “There _is_ a large window in the roofline over Wash’s room.  It would make sense that it’s set in an attic, and this would be a perfect place to put an access point.”

“Well, yeah,” York said.  “And you know, if you look at the roof I’m pretty sure there’s enough space up there for practically another whole floor.  Honestly I don’t know why none of us thought to ask about the attic before now.  It’s probably huge.”

“Probably?” North repeated.  “It’s not like you to let a locked door get in your way, York.”

“I—”

York stopped short.  Carolina had pushed past him, sidling into the cramped space behind him and reaching out to one of the shelves.  Her face had an unnatural pallor in the low light, a pale shade that didn’t belong on living skin.  When she drew her hand back she was holding a plush toy, a blue rabbit like the kind parents bought for a baby boy, its fur marred with dust and patches of some strange crusted grit, its color indistinguishable in the darkness.

“I forgot about that,” he said.  “I saw it when I was in here the last time.  Is it yours?”

“No,” she said shortly, her hand running over the toy.  “I don’t think so.  But I feel like I’ve seen it before somewhere…”

North was looking at it too, his gaze intense over her shoulder.

“Can I see that?” he asked.  “Maybe it has a name on the tag or some other marks on it.”

Carolina turned, holding it out to him, but as he took it from her she seemed to freeze, her gaze falling behind him and her muscles suddenly locking so tightly that York could feel the tension in her body where it brushed up against him in the small room.  By all rights the air in the closet should have been uncomfortably warm, the three of them crammed inside a tiny space and heating it with their breath and their bodies, but as Carolina went rigid beside him York only felt cold, a shivering chill sweeping through him.

“Carolina?” he asked, voice hushed although he wouldn’t dare acknowledge why.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly, her muscles relaxing in a way that felt completely forced.  “I thought… nothing.  Just a shadow.”

“In the dark?” North asked, looking up from the plushy.

“In the hall,” she said.  “It doesn’t matter.  Are we planning to spend the whole day in this closet?”

“Well, we could if you’re into that sort of thing,” York said a little weakly.  “But I’m not sure how much North would appreciate it.”

Judging by what he could see of her face, Carolina was considering smacking him for that one.  North just rolled his eyes and put the stuffed rabbit back down on the shelf.

“I think maybe we should just do what we came here for,” he said wryly.

“Well then, let’s see this attic,” Carolina said, moving forward and pulling at the doorknob.  It didn’t budge.

“I told you,” York said, “I couldn’t get in.”

“Really?  We’ve found the one lock in the world that York can’t break?” North said in a way that York really didn’t appreciate at all.

“ _No_ ,” he retorted, “I picked the lock already.  There’s just not that much I can do against nails.  Look.”

He took out his phone and held it up, the sudden electric glow making them blink as it flooded the tiny room.  Iron glinted around the frame of the door, solid and shut tight.

“That’s… a little disturbing,” North said, examining the doorframe.  Carolina gave it another tug, but it barely even rattled.

“No kidding,” said York.

“So pry the nails out,” Carolina said impatiently.  “We have a claw hammer in the basement, don’t we?”

“In the toolbox?  Yeah, I think so,” York replied.  “But the basement light is out.”

“And let me guess, you’re afraid of the dark as well as ghosts.”

“I’m afraid of breaking my neck falling down the stairs in the pitch blackness, yes,” York said sourly.  “But if you’re willing to go down there, be my guest.”

“Or you could just use a flashlight,” North broke in before the argument could get any louder.

“Do we have one?”

“There’s a flashlight in the top drawer next to the fridge,” Carolina said immediately.  “Go get it, York.”

York frowned.

“Why am I the one doing all the work?” he said petulantly.

“Because I believe in making people face their fears,” she replied.  “We’ll stay here and see if we can loosen any of the nails by hand, alright?  If you get attacked by ghosts or zombies just yell.”

York sighed and then shivered.

“Yeah, alright,” he said.  “Maybe I’ll pick up a jacket while I’m downstairs, too, it’s freezing in here.”

“Must be a draft from the attic,” North said, but his expression was doubtful and pensive.  Carolina was tugging at the door again, each pull creating a muffled thump as it strained against the wooden frame, and as York left the sound seemed to follow him out, a rhythmic thud with the cadence of footsteps.  He didn’t want to admit it, but he was glad to be out of the closet and its almost consuming darkness.  Even the hallway seemed less bright and cheerful, as though the morning sunlight had been leeched away, and York shivered again, steps quickening as he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

It only took a few seconds of digging through the drawers to find the flashlight, and with no other excuses he walked back to the hidden basement door.  Threading his fingers through the knot in the wood he pulled it open and looked in.  The staircase stretched out and down, disappearing into the ground below until he turned on the flashlight.  Plain old wood was revealed in the beam, nothing unusual and nothing dangerous. 

York took a deep breath and headed down.

 

 

 

He couldn’t find it.

Wyoming ripped back the blankets on the bed, overturned pillows, checked over and under things, but there was nothing to find.  He even checked the old secretary, flipping down the desktop despite the fact that there was obviously not enough space to fit a computer inside it while it was closed.  He turned on the lamp that sat on top of the antique, the faintly green light just enough to check under the desk and the bed as well, but all with no results.  He found York’s homework and York’s laptop, York’s pens and York’s notes, and with every reminder his fists clenched tighter, but there was nothing out of place, nothing that didn’t belong in the room. 

York had hidden it too well.

He turned.  York’s room was empty of evidence, but Wyoming still had the rest of the house to search.  When he reached the door, however, it seemed to stick for a moment, refusing to open even though only minutes before it had been unresisting.  Turning the knob did nothing, the latch staying firm and the door shut.

“What the devil?” he muttered angrily, tugging at it.  As he did, for a brief moment he felt a tingle, like someone running their fingernails up the ridges of his spine, like a sharp gaze, intent and disapproving.  In that distracted second he wondered briefly if maybe he was mistaken.  Could it all be a misunderstanding, a series of accidents that lined up in just the wrong way?  He was being illogical, irrational, acting on impulse and anger.  What he needed was patience, proof that someone had acted against him, and so far he had none at all.  Perhaps he was simply jumping to conclusions.

Wyoming rattled the handle and with a faint click the door unlatched and came open.

He stood for a moment, brow furrowed, trying to think.  Whatever else he needed, he needed to find his laptop.  York didn’t have it, not in his room at any rate, so he would need to search elsewhere.  The living room was the closest, so he started there. 

Looking into the large room, for some reason his gaze was drawn all the way back to the bay windows and the loveseat that rested before them.  One of the cushions was askew, lopsided as though something had been placed under it.  Wyoming narrowed his eyes and headed towards it.  He lifted the cushion carefully, but the fabric stuck, catching on whatever had been shoved below it to upset its balance.  He was forced to tug at it, the cushion finally coming away with a faint ripping sound to reveal what was underneath.

It was his laptop.

Wyoming stared at it and his mind went suddenly blank.  In the empty space where the cushion sat was a mess of cracked plastic, a spider’s web of glass, abused circuitry, and warped ribbons.  It still held the same vague lines of a computer, the casing splintered into jagged shards but otherwise still holding a general rectangular shape, but there was no doubt that it would never work again.  It had been utterly destroyed.

He reached out a hand, noticing in a detached sort of way that it was completely steady, and picked it up.  A faint sound of tinkling glass met his ears as he shifted it, some of the screen falling away to the floor even as the broken plastic dug into the palms of his hands.

Ruined, Wyoming thought numbly.  He hadn’t had a chance to back up his files yet, he hadn’t thought he would need to.  Months of toil were simply _gone_ , everything he had been working towards for _years_.  The laptop rattled in his grip.  There was no saving it.  In a state of numb disbelief Wyoming began to walk back to his room, stumbling as his eyes remained on the broken wreck of his entire academic career.  He crossed into the foyer in a daze, not noticing the open basement door until the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs alerted him, and he looked up just in time to see a bright light and a person emerge from the deep darkness of the doorway.

The person turned off the flashlight as he stepped onto the parquet and then glanced up, jumping a little when he saw Wyoming standing there in the foyer just staring at him.

“Whoa, you almost gave me a heart attack, man,” he said.

York.

When Wyoming didn’t respond he frowned and took a closer look at him, blinking in surprise.

“Holy shit,” he said.  “Is that your laptop?  What did you do to it?”

The foyer was lit with the golden glow of the morning light as it shifted to afternoon, and even standing in front of the permeating, almost seething blackness of the open basement, Wyoming could see him clearly.  His expression looked just a little too confused to be genuine, all sincerity and concern that no one who knew him would believe, and while in his right hand he held a harmless flashlight in his left was a heavy claw hammer.

“…Wyoming?”

Wyoming’s vision tunneled, the world going dark around everything but that hammer, that instrument used to crush and demolish, and his whole body began to tremble with sudden bleak rage.  His hands clenched, pain streaking through him as broken plastic and glass cut into his fingers in a sharp reminder, and he lurched forward, focused only on one thing.

“ _You_ ,” he growled, his voice guttural, distorted with fury.  “ _You have no idea what kind of trouble you are in._ ”

“What—”

Wyoming swung his arms up, smashing the ruined laptop across his enemy’s face with a satisfying _crack-crunch_ , glass and plastic flying away in all directions even as shards embedded themselves in York’s cheek.  York staggered sideways with the blow, a choked, pained sound catching in his throat as he dropped to one knee.  He lifted a shaking hand to his face, and as he did the hammer fell to the ground with a clatter.

Time seemed to slow, the whole of the world focusing on that tool and the damage it could do.

Wyoming lunged.

 

 

 

In the kitchen Wash stared vaguely at his half full mug of coffee, wondering blearily just how many cups he would need before he had more caffeine in his veins than blood.  At this point it was all he could think of to do; sleeping didn’t really seem to be an option for him anymore, and every passing day was wearing him down further.  He was starting to wonder just how much sleep a person could miss before it drove them insane.  Maybe he would look it up later.

His idle contemplation was interrupted by a quick series of noises in the foyer, at first barely audible from his place at the breakfast bar.  It was a thump and crack, like the sound of an impact, a startled grunt, and then a faint, wet sound that Wash couldn’t categorize even as it sent a shiver through him. The cry that followed was something he would never be able to describe, although it would likely haunt his dreams if he ever managed to sleep again.  The strangled shriek tore through the air, tapering into a keening moan that sounded almost impossible, its origin not human or animal but simply made of pain, ripped from the lungs and the throat and taking all sense of humanity with it, a person stripped down to pure agony. 

Wash dropped his mug.

Scrambling off his seat, he ran across the dining room, skidding around the corner and into the foyer.  What he saw laid out before him was a scene that burned itself into his mind, and he would glimpse the afterimages for days whenever he closed his eyes, sending a wave of shuddering revulsion through him.  For half a stuttered heartbeat he simply gaped in horror.

York was on his knees on the polished parquet of the foyer, a semicircle of broken glass and plastic scattered around him.  His head was tipped back and up, and what was visible of his face was blank with shock.  Above him stood Wyoming, eyes wild, expression twisted into a mask of rage as he tugged at the hammer in his hand, the tip of its claw buried in York’s left eye socket.  The metal was caught on his cheekbone, blood and other fluids dripping down his face in a flood of viscous scarlet tears.

One of York’s hands was wrapped around the hammer’s handle, as though he’d tried to stop it but reached too late.  With each yank on the tool York let out another choked gasp, his head pulled forward by inches but the hammer refusing to come free.

“You did this,” Wyoming was growling.  “You ruined everything!  I must stop you, _I will stop you!_ ”

“YORK!”

Carolina’s shout rang through the air, and Wash was jarred from his state of frozen panic as she and North came rushing down the stairs.  On the second floor a door slammed, the sound urging him into movement.  He dashed forward, unsure but determined, but as he did Wyoming wrenched the hammer to the side, gore flying off of it as it finally pulled free, tearing the flesh and jerking York’s head down as it did.  To his dismay, Wash saw Wyoming reel back for another blow.

Wash threw his body between them, almost taking the hit himself but managing to catch Wyoming’s arm on the downswing.  He tried to wrestle the hammer away from him, break his grip, but the man was fueled by anger and bent on destruction.  Wash could barely keep him from attacking York again.  In the space of seconds it felt like Wyoming had gained the upper hand, and there was little Wash could do to stop him from beginning his next assault.

Suddenly there was a sound like thunder rolling down the stairs and then Wyoming was down, tackled to the floor by the huge, immovable form of Maine.  The football player pinned the older man, holding his arms and throwing his weight across his legs so that no amount of struggling would buck him off.  Wyoming was yelling still, furious declarations that made no sense, each more hateful than the last. 

Wash backed away, breathing hard, and turned to the others.

“North, first aid kit, upstairs bathroom, _go_ ,” Carolina was saying.  She was crouched next to York on the floor, one hand on his shoulder and the other tight on his chin, trying to assess the damage.  Wash’s stomach churned as he got a good look at the mess that used to be York’s eye.

“I’ll call 911,” he said shakily as North sprinted back up the stairs.

“No,” Carolina snapped.  “It’ll take too long for them to get out here, I’ll drive him to the emergency room.  Go to the kitchen, see if you can find a paper or Styrofoam cup.”

“What?” Wash said weakly.

“Wash, _do it_ ,” she barked, and Wash obeyed, hurrying to the kitchen and through the cabinets until he found a stack of paper Dixie cups, the kind children took to picnics or tried to sell lemonade in.  He grabbed the whole stack and raced back to give one to Carolina.  She was still on the floor, sitting next to York with her hands around his wrists, too tight to be for comfort, pulling his arms back down every time he made a move to reach for his face.  Her voice was a calm murmur as she asked him if he had any other injuries, the words barely audible over the harsh, pained gasps coming from York.  Wash handed her a cup and she took it from him without a glance.

“I’m going to put this around your eye,” she told York, and Wash had to bite his lip to stop the half-hysterical question of _what eye?_   “We can’t put pressure on the wound or let anything else contaminate it.  I’m going to need you to hold it there while I tape it in place.  Can you do that for me?”

“Carolina…”

“York, you’re okay,” she said firmly, as though that would make it true.  “I need you to take a deep breath and then hold this in place.  You can do this.”

“Okay,” York managed. 

North came back with the hefty first aid kit from the upstairs bathroom, opening it for Carolina to look through.  She plucked the medical tape from its home, using it to secure the cup with quick, efficient movements, barely acknowledging the tremors in York’s hand.  Then, she coaxed York to his feet, allowing him to lean on her as she began to lead him towards the door.

“North, come with me,” she instructed.  “Sit with him in the back and make sure he doesn’t touch it.”

“Of course,” North agreed immediately, his face pale as he went ahead to open the door for them.  She gave him a grateful nod.  Wash watched them make their way out, his mind blank until the fleeting thought occurred to him that he didn’t know what he should do.

“Carolina!” he said, taking a step towards them.  She slowed for a second, steadying York’s shaking body as she looked over her shoulder at him.

“Wash,” she said, her voice low and her eyes burning, “call the police.”

He nodded dumbly, and before his stuttering mind could form a response they were gone, leaving him standing in the foyer with numb shock spreading through him. 

At some point, Wash hadn’t even noticed when, Wyoming had stopped yelling, his vitriol subsiding into harsh, almost animal sounding panting that seemed to fill the sudden silence.  Maine still held him immobile, and Wash realized for the first time that his friend was in his pajamas, his bare feet cut and bleeding on the shards of cracked plastic and glass that littered the floor.

“You… you got him?” Wash asked.  Maine nodded wordlessly.  “Then I… I’ll go call the cops, like she said.”

Maine nodded again, but as Wash crossed the foyer to where the land line rested in the living room, debris cracking until his slippers as he went, he noticed in a detached sort of way that his friend wasn’t looking at him.  Maine’s gaze was fixed down and to the side, on the center of the mess, a broken and battered laptop.  He stared at it, face ashen, looking like he wanted to reach out, to touch the shattered thing, as though he wasn’t sure it was real.

Wash ripped his eyes away from the scene, turning the corner into the living room and reaching for the phone.  Whatever Maine was thinking of could wait; this needed to be taken care of first.

He took the receiver off the cradle with a shaking hand and dialed.  The tone of the phone ringing on the other end played through the earpiece, and as it did a new sound started in the foyer, sending a clenching shudder through his body and into his bones.  Low, guttural, and insane, it bounced and echoed through the high spaces of the vaulted ceiling.

Wyoming began to laugh.

 

*

 

Sunday afternoon was tense and cold, the sky an overcast mess of gray clouds and thick winds that blew without warning in sudden gusts of stinging force.  The trees shook outside in a rattling refrain, branches clashing together while their leaves rustled in complaint.  The forest animals had tucked themselves away, hiding in the thickets and escaping to the lee of the mountain, and even the birds had gone silent, no song or calls to break the monotonous drone of the rushing wind.  It felt like the edge of a storm.

Inside the house the atmosphere was no less strained.

“They operated immediately but… there was nothing they could do to save his eye,” Carolina said grimly.  “They’re going to keep him for a couple days to watch for infection.”

The others nodded.  The whole group was gathered in the kitchen and dining room and it looked like they’d managed about an hour of sleep between them.  Carolina herself wasn’t much better, having spent most of the day and a large part of the night before at the hospital feeling useless and tense.  She leaned against the counter, the others looking to her like she was some sort of authority, like she could do something that could make the situation less terrible, but all she felt was tired.  Maine sat at the dining room table, staring blankly at his hands.  North and South were at the breakfast bar, CT sitting between them, and Wash leaned heavily against the wall nearby, his face tight and his eyes glazed with exhaustion.

“Wyoming…” Wash said suddenly, licking his lips when his voice came out dry.  “When the police dragged him away he… he was laughing.”

“Did they arrest him?” Carolina asked, venom seeping into her voice.

“Involuntarily committed,” North said quietly.  “He’s at Dymphna’s.”

The group turned to look at him, and when he noticed their gazes he shrugged listlessly.

“Florida called me,” he said.

“Florida?” Wash asked.

“He works as an orderly there,” Carolina told him.  In the short silence that followed this information, she could feel her frustration growing, the same question repeating in her head over and over until it burst out of her.  “Can anyone tell me _what the hell happened?_ ” she demanded.

They all looked at each other.

“Well, we weren’t even there, so we’d like to hear it too,” South said.  CT nodded.

“You got there first, Wash,” North said.  “Did you see anything?”

Wash shook his head.

“No?” he said, but it sounded like a question.  “Just… Wyoming standing over York and yelling.  Over and over again, ‘you did this, you destroyed it, I’ll stop you,’ stuff like that.  I don’t know what he was talking about, though.  There was broken shit all over the floor, and… hey, Maine,” he said suddenly, “you were looking at something, what was it?  A computer?”

Maine looked up from his reverie and nodded with a grimace.  Reaching to the chair beside him, he pulled out a broken mess of a laptop, all angles and sharp pieces, and set it down on the table in front of him.  Then he hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something but the words were tangled and caught between his mind and his throat.  It was a look Carolina was very familiar with after nearly three years of knowing him.

“Maine?” she asked patiently.  “What is it?”

He looked at her, brow furrowed and lips bent into a worried frown.  Slowly, he uncurled his hands, holding them up and tilting them down so that everyone could see.  His palms and fingers were covered with small cuts and scratches, a crisscross of irritated red lines.

Carolina stared at them.

“Those look a lot like the cuts on York’s face,” she said carefully, her tone flat.

“I think Wyoming hit him in the head with it before he went for the… the hammer,” Wash said.  He was looking at the scratches too, but with more worry and less suspicion.  “Did you get those when you picked it up?”

Maine hesitated again, and then shook his head.

“No,” he muttered.  “Before.”

“ _Before?_ ” South said incredulously.  “Wait, is that why Wyoming went psycho?  Did you break his fucking precious laptop?”

Maine shook his head again in sharp denial, but then stopped.  He leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands, and Carolina was surprised to see that they were trembling.

“Don’t know,” he admitted.

“You _don’t know?”_ South repeated.  “What kind of bullshit answer is that?”

“South…” North murmured, but she simply shot him a glare.

“Come on, you want to know, too,” she said.  “What the fuck is going on here?”

“Maine,” Carolina said, interrupting the twins before they could devolve into their usual bickering, “can you explain what you mean?”

Maine was quiet for a moment, collecting his thoughts through the frustration apparent on his face.

“Blackouts,” he said finally, his voice rough and unsure.  “Missing time.  I don’t _know_.”

A troubled silence fell between them.

“When I saw you in the hall on Friday,” Wash said slowly, “what were you doing?”

Maine just shrugged, his expression uneasy and underlined with the subtle traces of fear.

“Well that’s just great,” South scoffed.  “Maine develops a sleepwalking problem and suddenly everything goes to shit.”

“Why did Wyoming attack York, then?” CT asked, puzzled.

“Well, he did have the hammer,” North said thoughtfully.  “Maybe he thought York was the one who smashed the laptop.”

“Wait, _York_ had the hammer?” she repeated.

“We sent him downstairs to get it.  We were going to use it to break into the attic,” said Carolina.  North frowned at the reminder, and she could almost see where his thoughts were drifting.  She gripped the edge of the counter and told herself it didn’t matter, there were more important things to discuss.  Ghost stories were no longer relevant, not when York was in the hospital and would be half blind for the rest of his life.  Her hands began to tremble, and she held on tighter.

A frustrated growl broke through the conversation, and she blinked, glad for the distraction.  Maine was glaring at his hands, clenching them and releasing until the barely healing edges of the cuts split open and began to bleed.  They must have been deeper than they looked.

“Maine, stop, this isn’t your fault,” Wash said, but he didn’t sound reassuring so much as exhausted.  “It’s not your fault if you’ve been sleepwalking.  I mean, at least you’re _getting_ sleep.  I can’t even…  It’s gotta be something about this goddamned house.”

North looked at him sharply.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

Wash grimaced and looked away.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“Wash has been having nightmares,” CT informed them, giving him a searching look.

“CT, stop,” he complained, “I’m fine.”

“Wash, anyone who’s seen you in the last week can tell that something’s wrong,” she insisted.  “You look like you haven’t slept in a month.”

From the table Maine grunted in agreement.

They weren’t wrong.  Carolina had noticed over the past week that Wash seemed more worn down every time she saw him.  He was edgy, distracted, exhibiting the kind of behavior she associated with too much caffeine and not enough down time.  She had thought he was having a rough time with his classes, had offered to help him with homework occasionally when she saw him stressing over worksheets in the living room.  He hadn’t said much about his troubles, and she assumed he could work through it himself, but looking at him now she had to wonder how much of his problems were caused by simple stress and if he really knew when it was best to ask for help.

“Okay, yes, I haven’t been sleeping well,” he said irritably.  “But I don’t know if nightmare is the right word.  I just have these weird dreams sometimes where I think I’m awake and everything’s the same but…” he trailed off.

“But there’s someone in the room with you?” North filled in knowingly.

Wash startled and looked at him, the dark smudges under his eyes standing stark against the sudden pallor of his skin.

“Yeah,” he said, voice hoarse.  “Like something is… there.  Not watching, exactly, but… lingering.  Sobbing.  It’s horrible.”

“I’m not sure you were dreaming, Wash,” North said grimly.

Carolina’s grip on the counter’s edge tightened until it creaked.

“North,” she said lowly.  “This is not the time.”

“I disagree,” he replied, tone unusually hard.  “I think we need to talk about this.”

“Talk about what?” CT piped up.  “Guys?  What aren’t you telling us?”

“It’s not important,” Carolina said, glaring at him, “and I’d think you’d realize how incredibly tasteless it is to bring this up after what happened yesterday.”

“Carolina, that’s exactly why we need to discuss it,” he argued.  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we brought it up and then less than an hour later we were taking York to the hospital.”

“Of course it’s a coincidence!” she seethed. 

“Jesus Christ, somebody just tell us what the fuck you guys are talking about!” South practically yelled.

Carolina tried to glare him down, but North, usually so accommodating, met her gaze with a steely look of his own.  After a moment of tense silence he simply shook his head and turned to the others while she took in a long, shuddering breath that rattled through her teeth.

“Right before the… incident,” North said, ignoring her obvious agitation, “York and I were telling Carolina that we think the house is haunted.”

“Haunted?” Wash repeated, his voice cracking.  “ _Haunted?_ Are you… you’re serious.”

“Completely.”

In the incredulous silence that followed Carolina could hear the howling wind as it tore through the mountains.  There was no sunlight peeking through the heavy gray clouds outside and the lights in the kitchen were dim.  There were no shadows on the walls, and no strange spots of darkness that didn’t belong.  Carolina closed her eyes.

“Holy shit, you’ve finally lost it,” South said, staring at her brother.  North wasn’t even phased by the comment.

“York said he felt like he was being watched,” he explained.  “I’ve felt the same thing.  Now Wash is having nightmares, Maine is missing time, and Wyoming… we don’t even know what happened to Wyoming.”

“He broke under pressure,” Carolina spat, her eyes snapping open, “that’s what happened.  He was stressed out by his thesis, working too hard for too long, that’s all.  He’s been acting erratically for days, keeps losing things, you know that.  After his laptop was smashed he just lost it.”

“But who broke the laptop?” North said.  “And why?”  He pointed at it, a mess of jagged plastic and glass, barely recognizable as anything other than a heap of trash.  “That much damage is no accident, Carolina.”

“You really think the house is haunted?” Wash said weakly.  “By a ghost?”

“He’s imagining things,” Carolina insisted.

“I’ve seen one,” North persisted, and she could feel the threads of the conversation slipping through her fingers and out of her control.  “In my room, hiding behind doors or furniture, a little boy I only seem to be able to see in the mirror.  I’ve seen one of them.”

“One of them?” CT repeated in alarm, but she was drowned out by South’s loud scoffing.

“Oh please,” North’s sister said.  “That’s just typical.  A little boy, really?  You’re making this shit up, you’re just mad that I’m not sticking around for your patronizing older brother routine anymore so you’ve invented someone new to coddle.”

“Not everything is about you, South,” North said sharply, and she gave him a murderous look.

“Wait, back up,” CT interrupted, “what did you mean by ‘one of them?’”

“I don’t think whatever’s in my room is responsible for what happened to York,” North explained.  “He’s never seemed aggressive, pretty much the opposite.  I think it was something else.”

“Of course it was something else,” Carolina said angrily.  “It was _stress_.  Wyoming was under a lot of stress, so are you, _all_ of us are under a lot of pressure this year.  He spent too long isolated up in this house and he let it get to him.”

“Yeah, York and Wyoming were never exactly buddy-buddy,” South chimed in.  “And York can be kind of an asshole.  I mean, I’ve wanted to smash his face in before, and I don’t even live here.  Ow!”

North let his hand fall from where he had reached around CT to smack the back of South’s head, and his expression was saturated with irritated disappointment as he looked at his sister.  CT shook her head and sighed. 

“Jesus, South,” she muttered, dragging a hand over her face.  “Too soon.”

Carolina realized abruptly that her hands had clenched into fists below the counter, her nails digging into her palms, and she resolutely uncurled them.  The longer the conversation continued the more her skin seemed to itch, a pinprick crawling sensation like insects had crept into her veins.  The room was still dim, the gray weather outside far too murky to let a strong light through the windows, but the kitchen seemed to darken in her peripheral vision, shadows sliding into the cracks and corners.

Carolina took a deep, angry breath.  It was wrong.  They were wrong.

“I’m just saying,” South grumbled, rubbing her head.  “How do we know York didn’t break the laptop?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Carolina said immediately, glaring at them.  “But that doesn’t mean we should automatically assume the explanation is supernatural.  The whole idea is ridiculous.”

“Carolina, you can’t deny that something strange is going on in this house,” North said.

“Yes I can!” she yelled.  Wash and CT both jumped, staring at her, but North just shook his head, disappointment still strong and obvious in his face.  Maine had no reaction at all, his gaze still locked on his hands, like he had checked out of the conversation.  She forced herself to breathe.  “What happened was awful, and you can bet that I am upset about it, but there is a logical explanation for it, and blaming uncontrollable outside forces is both lazy and irresponsible.”

There was an uncomfortable pause as the others exchanged glances.

“Carolina does have a point,” CT said slowly.  “York’s been hurt.  We can’t just say a ghost did it and then walk away.  We need to find out why.”

“But we don’t know why Wyoming flipped out,” South said.  “It’s not like we can ask him, not while he’s locked up in the nuthouse.”

“And if it is because the house is haunted, what can we even do about it?” Wash said uneasily.

“We investigate,” said CT, as if the answer was obvious.

“Are you serious,” South groaned, laying her head down on the breakfast bar.  “That’s your solution to everything.  Snooping.”

“I’m a journalist, South,” CT said patiently.  “Look, if the house _is_ haunted then it’s got to be haunted by something or some _one_.  There should be something in the history of the place – deaths, violent incidents, the kind of thing that makes the newspapers or at the very least goes on record.  If we look into that maybe it’ll give us an idea of what’s going on and what to do next.”

“I can’t believe this,” Carolina muttered.

“We can’t just dismiss North’s idea because it’s implausible, Carolina,” CT said.

“You mean stupid,” South grumbled.  “And pathetic.  And—”

“Yes, thank you South, we get it,” North said with a sigh.

“I’ll start digging, see if there’s any basis for the haunted theory,” CT continued.  “And if there isn’t, I guess we’ll have to go from there.  Maybe North can introduce us to his ghost.”

“He might not show himself,” North mused.  “He’s a little shy.”

Outside the clouds seemed to thicken in the cold wind and the room slipped further into shade. The walls of the kitchen were flat and gray around them, uniform and unremarkable.  There were no inconsistencies, no breaks in color, and no shadows on the walls.  There was nothing of note in the kitchen at all, Carolina repeated in her mind even as she refused to look around her.  There was no reason to look; there was nothing there, just her friends and their misguided ideas, their passive willingness to accept that the world was beyond their control.  They were wrong, they had to be.  There was nothing in this house that wasn’t brought about by flesh and blood, human problems that could be conquered in human ways.

Carolina’s skin itched and her body tensed, her legs trembling with the urge to move, to charge, to fight.  They were wrong.  She wouldn’t listen.  She wouldn’t have it.

They were still talking about it.

“See if you can find out anything about the attic,” North was telling CT. 

“The attic?” Wash asked, puzzled.

“There’s a door in the east side linen closet that’s been nailed shut,” North explained.  “We were trying to open it, that’s why we sent York to get the hammer.  I think whatever it is that attacked York might be trying to keep us out.”

“Wyoming attacked York,” Carolina growled.  North gave her a look that was almost pitying, and she wanted to hit him for it.

“Carolina, why can’t you even consider—”

“We’re all tired,” she declared loudly through gritted teeth, running over the end of his sentence.  “We’re not thinking clearly.  I know it’s afternoon now, but you should all try to take a nap, find some way to calm down.”

“Yeah,” South said under her breath, barely audible with her face still squashed against the countertop, “ _we’re_ the ones that need to calm down.”

Carolina tried to ignore her, clenching her fists until her fingers ached.

“I’m going back to the hospital,” she said firmly.  “York’s probably awake again, I should be there.”

“Carolina—” Wash started as she stormed past.

“It’s fine, Wash,” she said, voice far too harsh for the sentiment.  She took a breath, steadied herself, and continued in a softer voice.  “Get some rest.”

 

*

 

When York came back the entire house seemed subdued somehow, a heavy atmosphere that smothered what little energy he might have had.  Wash had driven him home, the only one among them who had Tuesday afternoons free of classes, although he had to borrow York’s car to make the trip.  He had chatted nervously the entire way, keeping his eyes carefully and pointedly fixed on the road.  Once they were home he had offered to help York to his room, but York had just given him a disgruntled look.  He was injured, not eighty, and his legs were fine.  He could walk the forty feet to his room without help.  Wash had backed off, and York didn’t really care that he looked tired and upset, too focused on his persistent headache and the itch of the bandages around his face.

“I’ll be upstairs if you need anything,” Wash had said, and York waved him away and set off towards his own room.

He didn’t even make it halfway.

York sat on the sofa in the living room, his head pounding, the pressure of the bandage a constant reminder of his injury.  The house was quiet and dim, even the cheerful light of the afternoon somehow failing to penetrate the gloomy atmosphere the place had taken on in his absence.  Even so, shadows lingered in the corners of the room, black on gray and still in the stagnant air of the almost empty house.  He watched them listlessly, wondering if it was the painkillers that made some of them seem deeper than others, or more lifelike, poised on the edge of movement like a photograph.

North had told him about their discussion.  When Carolina had come to see him in the hospital she had been agitated, angry, and he didn’t know why or what to do, too groggy still to even process anything beyond the fact that he wanted to do something to change that.  His other friends had trickled in when they had free time, informing him of the aftermath, telling him what had happened to Wyoming while he was in surgery.

The doctors said he should stay out of school for at least a couple of weeks.  Sitting alone in the living room, watching the shadows play in a static dance that moved between blinks, he didn’t know how long he could stand it.  He looked over to the door of his room, only a few yards away now, and shivered.  Maybe he’d stay where he was for a little longer.

He wasn’t sure how long he was there before the front door opened and shut, and York swung his aching head around to the foyer.

“York?” North said, Carolina coming in behind him, her expression sour.  “What are you doing out here?”

“Sitting,” York replied blithely.  “That is what couches are for, generally.”

“Are you alright?” Carolina asked, her face pinched but her voice layered with concern.  York shrugged and put on a smile.

“I’ll be okay,” he tried.  She didn’t look convinced but nodded anyway.  “I just didn’t feel like going back to my room for a while, that’s all.”

She froze, and being more than half awake this time, he saw the way her legs twitched and her eyebrows pulled down, one hand bunching the hem of her teal shirt.

“You probably don’t have anything to worry about,” North said.  “You said the presence in your room—”

Carolina whirled around and stomped away, shoulder checking North as she went, her bright red ponytail bouncing behind her and around the corner, out of sight.  York frowned.  He still didn’t understand what bothered her so much about the idea.  It wasn’t fear, he knew her too well to even consider it.  The house was haunted, there was nothing that would convince him otherwise at this point, but she was adamant that they were delusional, that there was nothing to talk about.  The very concept seemed to make her angry.  He just couldn’t figure out why.

He sighed, letting his head fall back to hit the top of the sofa and regretting it immediately as the pain in his head throbbed in tandem.

“She’s going to have to deal with this eventually,” North said, looking after her.  “It might be dangerous not to.”

“We’ll get through to her,” York said, but his voice was empty.  “I just need to figure out a way to talk to her without getting a kick in the face.”

“Probably not your face you should be worried about,” North said with a grimace.  York snorted, and then cringed as his head complained again.

“Ow,” he muttered.  “Yeah, I can see your point.  Or not.  Maybe your point requires more depth perception than I currently have,” he joked.  North gave him an exasperated look and York sighed again.  “Well, at least I’ll probably get a badass scar out of all this.  That’s something, anyway.”

“I guess that will have to qualify as a bright side,” North replied.  He looked like he was about to say something but changed his mind.  “You should get some rest,” he decided on.  “I’m sure your room is fine.”

“Yeah,” York replied.  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Let us know if you need anything.”

“Sure,” he said morosely.  North nodded and then walked out.

Alone in the living room, York tried to convince himself that his shadow wasn’t darker than it should be.

 

*

 

Carolina woke up screaming.

It was a charitable thing to say, the most minimal fact of the matter, because the truth was that Carolina woke everyone with her screaming.

Washington sat up in bed, shaking as the shrieking, terrified wail circled the room, rising from below and going up and up and up, in volume, in pitch, throwing itself ever higher like a frightened bird flushed from a meadow as a hunter takes aim.  He sat, petrified, as the sound seemed to go on for hours, time warping and stretching it to something inhuman, and the sick certainty washed over him that whatever had happened it was too late to be stopped.  He would be here forever, trapped in this sound and this moment, unable to move even to bring his hands to his ears and block out the noise.  There was nothing to be done, there was nothing he could do, only sit there ensnared in the desperate sound of fear.

Then, under the noise was a muted crash, a voice swearing in the foyer, and the spell was broken.

Wash threw himself out of the bed and to the door, stumbling as he opened it and ran down the hall and the stairs, the railing gripped tightly in his hand.  North was at the base of the stairs, already moving past the little upended table and broken vase, one bare foot bleeding lightly even as he made his way determinedly towards the dining room and Carolina’s room beyond, where their friend still screamed as if the world was ending.  Wash circled wide, avoiding the broken crystal and catching up with North just as he reached the doorway, already thrown open, and stopped short.

York was inside, the only one beside Carolina who slept on the ground floor, pleading with her to wake up, hands hovering, trembling, just short of touching her.

“’Lina, come on,” he said, “you’re okay, it’s a nightmare, just… just wake up, please.”

“What’s going on?” North asked, unshakable calm threaded through his voice like steel.  He stepped into the room and Wash followed him, immediately wrapping his arms around himself.  It was like walking into a cave or a crypt, his breath hanging in the air like fog even as his toes curled on the frigid wood.  He glanced around, looking for an open window before realizing that such cold could not possibly be coming from the outside, not even in the first chill days of fall.  The windows were all shut tight, lined with fog and condensation that was just beginning to crystalize.

“I don’t know,” York was saying, difficult to make out over the continued sound that seemed to fill the room as it just kept going and Wash stared as he wondered how did she breathe, when did she last breathe?  Her eyes were open, he noticed as he began to shiver violently in the icy room, green and blank and terrified, they stared unseeing at the ceiling above and the scream went on, as though it didn’t need breath to fuel it, only a fear strong enough to freeze the blood in her veins and the very air itself. 

“It must be a nightmare,” York said, hands reaching for her again but stopping short.  “It… it has to be a nightmare, right?”

“Wake her up,” North urged him, “she might hurt herself.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to wake people from nightmares?” Wash said, still standing back.

“Screw that,” York said, hands finally falling to rest on her shoulders, “this needs to stop, she sounds like she’s being _tortured._ ”

“Yeah, but don’t people with nightmares—” Wash started as York tried to shake her.

The sentence was only halfway out of his mouth when he shook her again, calling her name, and Carolina’s shriek cut off abruptly as she came up swinging.  It was only good luck that she didn’t hit his damaged eye, the punch instead landing a solid hit to the jaw on the other side of his face.

York went down like a ton of bricks.

“…tend to lash out when you wake them,” Wash finished lamely, wincing.

“Yeah, thanks Wash,” York muttered from where he landed, rubbing at the blossoming bruise.

“What the fuck?!” Carolina demanded hoarsely.  She shook her hand and glared at them, gathered around her bed in various states of undress.  North was in his pajamas, purple with vivid green pinstripes, and Wash at least had a shirt on over his boxers, but York was just in his briefs and she didn’t seem too impressed by the sight.  Maybe it was the cold.  “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

“You were having a nightmare,” North said quietly.

“I—what?” Carolina said, and then she coughed, her hand coming to her throat with a grimace.

“You were screaming like a goddamned banshee,” York said, hauling himself to his feet, one hand still cupped around his jaw.  “We thought you were being murdered.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Wash asked, and as soon as he said it he wished he hadn’t.  Carolina’s face fell into cold stillness, her whole body motionless.

“I don’t remember,” she said, her voice vague and her eyes blank.  “I don’t remember.  I don’t—”

“It’s okay, Carolina, it was probably just a nightmare,” North said.  He didn’t look like he believed it, but for the moment he was clearly more concerned with calming her down than continuing their argument.  “Come to the kitchen with us, I’ll make you some tea for your throat while I get this jackass an ice-pack.”

Carolina blinked, her gaze turning puzzled and drifting to York before she noticed the already livid red mark on his jaw.

“York!” she said, scrambling out of bed.  “Shit, did I do that?  How bad is it?”

“It’s alright,” York murmured, “you can make it up to me later when we’re not all half-awake and scared out of our pants.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go back to the hospital?” she asked.

“Kitchen,” North called, already out of the room.  “We’ll inspect the damage there, come on.  He can survive until then.”

“Yeah,” Carolina said, wincing and cradling her hand.  “I might need an ice pack, too,” she admitted as they all left the room.

Wash followed them out, the last to leave, and as he came to the threshold he paused, not quite sure why.  He looked back into the room, scanning the emptiness for anything out of place.  It was Carolina’s room and he had never been a frequent visitor, all of them valuing their space and their privacy, but nothing looked unusual.  There was the wardrobe, her desk, her weights, and her bed.  There was the window seat, pressed up against the big bay windows overlooking the front drive.  Wash stared, the moonlight flooding in stark and hollow as the fog slowly receded from the glass.

The cold was gone.

Wash shivered and turned, shutting the door behind him.  Hopefully North was willing to make hot chocolate for everybody, he thought idly, because he thought they might need it.  Crossing through the dining room, Wash was almost past the gaping archway into the foyer when he saw it out of the corner of his eye; a looming white shape on the second floor, motionless near the top of the stair, looking down on him.  His breath caught in his throat and he froze, turning slowly to look at the specter.

“Christ,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head with a tiny laugh.  Anyone could see ghosts in the night after a scare like that, he supposed, even when it was just your worried best friend.  “She’s alright,” he called.  “Just a nightmare, but we’re all going to have something to drink.  You coming down, Maine?”

Maine didn’t answer.  He simply watched from the second floor, silent and preternaturally still.  In the haphazard moonlight the balcony was cast in shadow, Maine’s white nightclothes the only thing that caught the eye, and Wash realized as the seconds slipped by with no response that he couldn’t see Maine’s face.  For no reason he could name, his skin began to crawl and a tightness gripped his throat, choking his attempt to call out to him again.  Wash stood stock still, rooted to the spot by whatever terrible instinct had seized him.

It’s only Maine, he thought desperately.  It’s only Maine.

A full minute passed before the figure of his friend finally moved.  Stepping back from the railing he turned and walked slowly back to his room, the door closing noiselessly behind him.  His footsteps echoed after him off the high vaulted ceiling and Wash listened to them with a terror he couldn’t understand.

It was only Maine, after all.

 

*

 

On Friday evening CT came back to the house to deliver her report.

“Nothing,” she said, and Carolina couldn’t help but feel a thrill of triumph.  “I’ve looked everywhere I could get access to; old newspapers in the library, local chronicles, public police records.  As far as history is concerned this house is just a kind of creepy looking building out in the woods.  No one’s died here, and as far as I can tell there weren’t even any major injuries before what happened last Saturday.”

Carolina let the information sink into the room, let it settle in her mind as she told herself she had been right all along.  It should have felt like a balm on her nerves, vindication and relief that there really was nothing to worry about.  Instead she just felt tight, like a cord wound around a top, ready to spin away at the first firm tug.

They were in the living room, crowded around the coffee table.  Carolina sat with York on the sofa, Wash on his other side, and North leaned against the arm rest.  Maine occupied a chair nearby, silent and pale, and CT stood in front of them, like she was giving the weirdest presentation in history; an exposé on hauntings or the lack thereof.  South had declined to come, according to CT declaring that the whole thing was bullshit and a waste of time.  Carolina didn’t blame her, not when she agreed.  After all, even CT had found nothing.  There was nothing to find.

The sun sank into the mountains and shone through the windows behind them, harsh and bright.  She glared at the shadows and dared them to move.

“Really?” Wash asked CT, sounding both relieved and confused, and Carolina really needed to have a talk with him about gullibility and thinking for himself.  “Nothing?”

CT shrugged.

“No violence, no deaths,” she said.  There was something a little off about the way she said it, a very specific answer to a vague question, but Carolina wasn’t about to second guess the good news.

“I’m glad that’s settled then,” she said.  “I hope everyone can put this childish theory behind them now and focus on more important things.”

“More important things like what?” York asked.  Carolina put her hand on his knee and nudged him gently with her shoulder.  The pressure bandage had come off that morning but he was still wearing a patch to hide the unsightly mess that was his eye.  The cuts that snaked out around it like red lightening were jagged and angry, and they would almost certainly scar.

“Healing,” she said firmly.  “Getting some rest and trying to relax a little so we’re not jumping at shadows.  We need to try and get things back to normal.”

“That might be a little difficult to do here,” North murmured.

Carolina took a long breath.

“North,” she said calmly, “you heard what she said.  She couldn’t find anything.  There’s no reason this house should be haunted.”

“Not on record,” CT agreed.

“You think there might be something off the record?” Wash asked.

“It’s possible,” she said a little cagily.  She hesitated before continuing, giving Carolina a searching look.  “You grew up here, right?” she said.  “And you’re an only child?”

“That’s right,” Carolina answered blankly.  CT’s eyes narrowed.

“So you would have been in the house alone a lot as a kid,” she said.

Carolina felt it when York’s hand came down on top of hers, squeezing lightly to remind her that he was there, warm and solid beside her, the only person present who knew just how true that statement was.  She appreciated it, but she didn’t need the comfort.  It was an old hurt, and she knew how to weather it.  He was the one in pain now, and she could be strong for him, too, if she needed to.  She would be strong, she told herself as the shadows flickered in the fading light and her skin began to prickle.

“Yes,” she said shortly, even though CT hadn’t really asked a question.

“And you never saw anything strange?  Nothing at all?”

Carolina sighed, suddenly so tired.  She hadn’t slept well in the last few days, as she was sure the others would remind her, using it as some sort of proof of their wild ideas.  She woke up cold and sweating, anxious for reasons she couldn’t name, her dreams a mess of half-remembered images and the constant terrified whisper of _run_.  It was her friends’ anxiety seeping into her mind, their paranoia poisoning her subconscious, and she hated it.

Carolina didn’t run from things.  She ran to them, she ran at them, but she wouldn’t run from them. 

“Never,” she answered firmly, feeling their eyes on her.  “There was nothing sinister, nothing frightening.  Nothing that wasn’t just a little girl playing make-believe.  I keep telling you, the house wasn’t haunted.  It _isn’t_ haunted.”

“You sound so sure,” Wash said, shifting uneasily.  “But what about what’s happening now?”

Maine grunted in agreement from his chair, and North’s ice chip eyes were fixed on her as well.  CT had never looked away, her gaze sharp and concentrated, giving her the kind of look that she would turn on a particularly difficult puzzle. 

“Stress,” Carolina said for what felt like the millionth time.  “We’re under stress and it’s only getting worse.  We’re losing sleep, getting paranoid.  We just need to take a step back, alright?  Try to think clearly, maybe take some time off.”

“Time off’s all I’ve got,” York muttered, and Carolina flipped her hand under his and squeezed back.  He looked a little startled, but he smiled.  She tried to ignore how tight the expression looked, and the sliver of doubt she could see in the lines of his face.

“We’ll be okay, guys,” she said, doing her best to sound confident.  “It’s the weekend now, and we can try to unwind a little bit.  CT, you staying for dinner?”

“I shouldn’t,” she replied.  “South’s expecting me back and if I don’t make dinner God knows what she’ll do to the kitchen.”

North chuckled.

“Maybe I should come and help,” he said hopefully.  “You might need someone to keep her distracted while you cook.”

CT finally tore her eyes away from Carolina to give him a sympathetic look.

“I don’t know how well that would go over,” she said, shrugging.  “She’s still a little touchy about this whole mess.”

North sighed, but nodded.

“I suppose I’ll give her a couple more days, then,” he said, but he sounded unsure.  “Her temper will burn out eventually.”

“Well, I think a big dinner is exactly what we all need,” York declared.  He gave Carolina’s hand one last squeeze and then dropped it, standing up to stretch.  “Carolina’s going to have to cook of course, because North’s too busy moping over his cranky sister and I don’t trust Wash and Maine around knives.”

“What about you?” North asked, rolling his eyes.

“Me?” York said, placing a hand on his own chest dramatically.  “You’re making the injured party cook?  I’m hurt!”

“I know,” North said, and the words had more weight to them than they should, killing York’s attempt to lighten the mood immediately.  Carolina sighed and stood up as well.

“You just want my grandmother’s barbeque,” she said, patting his shoulder as she passed on her way out.  “But I guess I can oblige this once.  Have a good night, CT.”

CT nodded, watching her go, and Carolina didn’t quite understand the calculating look on her face, but she was too tired to really care.  She needed food just as much as the rest of them and she was willing to supply it.

As she walked across the foyer she heard the others still talking behind her.  Perhaps they thought they were being quiet, but they underestimated the ability of the halls of the house to carry noise, to amplify and to echo.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to let her keep denying this?” 

North.

“What?  But there’s no evidence, you really still think—” 

Wash.

“I’m not pushing it for now.  She’s right about one thing, we do need to take the stress levels down a notch.  Arguing about it’s not going to help that.  Not right now.” 

York.

Carolina stopped in the archway to the dining room and clenched her fists.  Behind her the sun finally finished its descent behind the hills and the light through the windows abruptly died, shadows melting back into a blank soulless gray.  She stood there for a moment, her muscles aching, and told herself it wasn’t worth it to turn back.

They were wrong.

They had to be.

 

*

 

Dinner hadn’t been the relaxing meal they had hoped, everyone too tense and too wary to really unwind, the air thick with things that weren’t being said, hanging heavy over them like a weight on a fraying string.  Even Maine had noticed, despite his preoccupation and his now near constant headache.  No one had stayed at the table longer than necessary, choking down their food to the tune of awkward conversation and pauses that went on too long.  When they retired it was with a feeling of nervous apprehension.  No one really knew what was going to happen next, and the longer they went without incident the more they caught themselves looking over their shoulders, jumping at the smallest sounds.

In his room Maine stared at his homework.  It was Friday night, time to be out having fun or goofing off, but in the strained atmosphere of the house where even the air seemed like it was stretched and taut, just waiting to snap, even the idea of fun was so foreign it felt impossible. 

So they had gone their separate ways, even though some of them seemed reluctant.  Wash in particular had hesitated, stopping at the top of the stairs as though he had something to say before moving on in silence, trudging back to his room without a word.  Maine had never seen him look so tired, so worn, but he didn’t have the energy to reassure him.  Maybe in the morning when the world was brighter they would make the trip to town, get out of the house before the weight of its dark halls and bleak silences crushed them.

Maine clenched his fists, hissing at the sting in his hands.  The cuts weren’t too deep and starting to heal, but they still hurt, a sharp pain that could drown out the dull throbbing in his head and the subtle burn on his nerves.  It kept him awake, a jolt to the system that he could use whenever he began to drift off, began to lose himself to the unremembered nights, the wandering that made him shake when he thought about it.  He was almost afraid to go to sleep.  He never knew what he would wake up to, or how much time would have passed.

His room was warm.  These days it felt like it was the only room in the house that didn’t carry a slight chill, for all that it made little sense.  The sun had set hours ago, the forest outside slipping into night, and inside the room was lit only by his desk lamp, a harsh circle illuminated around him while darkness fled to far corners.  He sat there, staring blankly at his homework, trying to focus enough to remember what subject it even was, and he did his best to ignore the flicker in his peripheral.  The edges of his vision seemed to blur and then smolder, a wavering light like a candle that danced over the nerves in his tired, watering eyes and threatened to set them on fire, a slow burn that seemed to pulse in time with his aching head.

Maine turned to look.

The room was dark, with nothing there to frighten or alarm him.  He ran a hand over his face and then his head, wincing a little at the pain in his injuries. 

Maybe Carolina was right.  Stress and paranoia certainly weren’t helping him, and staring uselessly at his work wasn’t doing him any good, either.  CT herself had said there was no history of ghosts making their home in the house.  Whatever was happening, depriving himself of sound sleep would probably just make it worse.  He just needed to calm down, let the tension go.

The room was warm around him, the unseasonal heat sinking into his skin and his mind, a balm on his aches and pains as the tightness in his muscles eased and faded.  It would be okay to rest for a while.

 _It’ll be alright_ , he told himself, and the words were like honey, sweet and warm and satisfied.  _It’ll be alright if you just relax._

In the back of his mind he felt a faint nagging worry, but he would deal with it later.  He needed his sleep.

Maine closed his eyes.

 

 

 

North stood at his dresser, his hands braced against it.  He wasn’t looking in the mirror tonight, he didn’t need to.  A strange sense of anticipation permeated the house, focused like eyes on a baited trap, making everyone sensitive and hyper alert.  He knew the boy was there, watching, likely crouched behind his bedpost or even peeking out from under the bed as he had taken to doing in recent nights.  He was there, no matter how much Carolina wanted to deny it or how unwilling the others were to contradict her.  He was watching, and he was listening.  North could feel it.

He sighed.

“I’m worried,” he admitted.  “Carolina is too stubborn to see what’s right in front of her, too focused on being in control.  People could get hurt.”

He stopped and lifted a hand to rub at his eyes.

“People have gotten hurt,” he corrected himself.  The silence in the room waited patiently for him to continue.  “I don’t know what’s going on, or what’s causing these things to happen, but I don’t think you’re the one doing it.  Hell, you’ve never even tried to scare me.  And I know I’m not imagining you, no matter what South says.”

He frowned, thinking of his sister.  He still wasn’t sure if she was angry because she thought he was more focused on someone else for a change or because she thought that he wasn’t.  She had always been a strange combination of push and pull, give and take.  She declared her independence loudly and at every opportunity, but she still cared.  He knew that.  He trusted that instinct, like he trusted her to listen to him, eventually, if he was only patient enough.  These days that trust sometimes felt like the only positive thing between them.

But that didn’t mean it was limited to her.

“I trust you, kid,” he said quietly.  “I know this isn’t your fault.  But… is there anything you can do to help?  I just don’t want things to get worse.”

Finally, with a heavy breath, he looked up, training his gaze on the mirror just shy of where he expected his little friend to be. 

What he saw froze the breath in his lungs, a shiver racing down his spine.  The boy was there, but where in the past every interaction between them had seemed to encourage him, bring him just a little closer, a little farther out of his shell, tonight he was in full retreat.  The small, painfully hopeful smile that North had started seeing was gone, hidden behind the closet door as he used it once more like a shield, an unreliable barrier against the terrors of the world.  Only the tips of his fingers and a portion of his pale face were visible, but it was just enough to read his expression.

The boy looked back at him, his eyebrows drawn and his grip on the closet door tight, the bones of his knuckles stark and white even against the pallor of his skin, but it was his eyes that caught North’s attention and kept it, locked on that still image that until now had never once frightened him.  Those pale eyes, their color still indistinguishable from a distance, had always radiated feeling, caution and wariness clouding their expressive depths or more recently the beginnings of hope and fresh trust lending them a slight sparkle, but those things were gone now, drowned and lost under a new emotion that made the hairs on his neck stand on end.

His eyes were wide with fear.

North stared, a chill that had nothing to do with temperature crawling through him as he wondered just how much worse things would get.

 

*

 

Wash woke to the sound of sobbing.

He had heard it before, the harsh, uneven sound of breath choked back and then let go, suddenly and with violence that suggested not intention but a failure to hold on, as though it had escaped, beaten its way out of the body through pained lungs and a battered throat.  It cycled, louder and softer, nearly dying away on a wet, strangled sigh before it returned, almost deafening in the quiet room, undeniable, turning the air thick with despair.  Just listening to it made his throat burn and his body ache.

Had it always been so loud, so close?  Wash didn’t know, lying there trembling in the dark, if it grew stronger every time or if it was simply the new certainty that it was real, this sound that kept him up night after night with its never ending grief and pain, not a dream, not a nightmare, but a presence there with him, wet breath on his cheek, cold dead fingers a moment away from closing over his wrists. 

His eyes snapped open and he swallowed a gasp, unwilling to contribute to the noise as he desperately scanned the room for the source.

There was nothing to see, but that sound, God, the sound continued on.  It seemed endless, each second stretching out and wrapping around him, and he would be there always, listening to the agonizing sob, unable to stop it, unable to help or to run, trapped and imprisoned until it drove him insane.  It was unbearable.  He couldn’t take it, it seeped into his lungs, crawled into his skin, coating his tongue and silencing his own aborted cries, he couldn’t take it, he had to get out.

This was reality, he thought in a haze, shaking.  It was real, not a dream, which brought it new terror, but that also meant that he was not a prisoner of his own mind, that meant that nothing could keep him there but his own cowardice, his own fear freezing him in place.  He could leave if he wanted, if he could just make himself move.  He could leave, he could leave. 

He had to get out.

Slowly, the sound of sobs pouring through him like drinking oil and needles, pain and suffocation that spread through his throat and down his arms to his tingling fingertips, into his lungs until he was drowning in it, slowly he turned his head to the side, to the door, trying to ignore the rise in pitch of the hitched, gurgling breath all around him, inside him, looking instead towards escape.  All he had to do was move, all he had to do was leave.

_But the door is locked._

Wash’s heart almost stopped.

At once everything seemed to intensify and Wash nearly sobbed as well when he realized there was no way out.  The door was locked, how could the door be locked?  But it was, it was, and he knew instinctively that he would be unable to open it, could almost see the knob sticking fast in his hands, trapping him, holding him there.  The door was locked, and despair flooded into him like liquid lead through his veins, an impossible weight on his heart and his limbs. 

The hitching breaths were fading away again into a rattling gasp, but they would be back, louder than before and Wash didn’t think he could take it anymore.  There was nothing he could do but listen, incapable of changing things, helpless as it just went on and on and never ended.  He was locked in and no one knew but him, no rescue on the horizon and nothing to be done.  He would be there forever in his isolation, listening, listening to the sounds of torture and pain, and he couldn’t stand it, it would eat him alive.

Wash tried to breathe in the stifling quiet as the last of the noise vanished and he wished desperately that against all odds it would just go away.  One minute passed, then two, and just as he began to hope that it was over, he heard it.  It began again in a wet whisper, and Wash closed his eyes tight and wished that he were anywhere else, knowing that there was nowhere he could go.

_I just want it to stop, please just make it stop…!_

He opened his eyes again, barely noticing that his face was wet, and turned his head, away from the locked door, to the only escape left.  The room fell into a hush but it didn’t matter, it would come back, it always did, a never ending loop of grief that would pin him down for eternity if he let it.  But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, it would destroy him, get inside and pull him taut until it ripped his mind and soul to shreds. 

 _Only one way left,_ he thought, the only clear thing in a blurred world.

He turned and reached, no longer shaking, his limbs steady and heavy as he opened the drawer in the nightstand.  His hand skated over the old blue lighter, lingering for only a second on the rusted metal, and pulled out the knife.  He flipped it open and the handle felt strange in his hand, too smooth, too heavy, and with no bite at all.  It didn’t matter, though, it would do the job.

He didn’t hesitate.

The blade sank into his flesh like it belonged there.  The first cut didn’t even hurt.

The second one did, but it was far too late to stop.

He had to get out.

 

 


	4. The Devil's Backbone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings specific to this chapter include: suicide/suicide attempt, blood, ableist language, discussions of mental illness and mental institutions.
> 
> This chapter is a little shorter than the others, primarily because the original draft of the chapter was absurdly long, so I’ve cut it at the midpoint. This means that there are now five chapters and an epilogue, but don't worry, the story will still be complete before Halloween!
> 
> The other thing I realized is that I have neglected to inform you all that this fic is meant to be the first of a series. What that means in terms of the story is that not all the loose ends are going to be tied up by the end. Still, I think you’ll be able to figure out what’s going on, and I do intend to address all of it eventually, just not in this fic. In other news, I’ve signed up for the RvB Big Bang to write the next part, so I am 100% committed to writing it! I hope no one is disappointed by this news! 
> 
> Chapter five will be posted on October 14th. Thank you for reading!

 

 

York woke in an icebox.  His breath was a delicate mist in the frigid air, and he sucked in another through chattering teeth.  The room was cold, colder than he’d ever been indoors, and when he turned his head he could see a fine frost climbing up the windows like a living thing, intricate lines and patterns made ethereal with an edge of eerie green light.

He frowned, half asleep and freezing, and sat up to look around, dragging the blankets along with him to protect himself from the icy bite of the air.  His desk lamp was on, he realized, shivering.  The glow of the lamp lit the room in a wash of green, and York simply stared at it for half a second, knowing that he had turned it off before he went to bed, knowing that it must have turned itself on again while he was sleeping.  Was that why the room was so cold?  The presence in his room had never been so intrusive before, so clear, and yet there was something about it, about the numb dread spreading through him as he sat staring blankly at the light, something he recognized.  It was something he had felt before.

A bolt of fear ripped through him, and suddenly he was wide awake.

Carolina, he thought frantically.  This was the same unnatural cold, the same nameless terror that flooded her room on the night she lay screaming and wouldn’t stop.  There was no noise now, the house steeped in an uncanny quiet, as though the echoes of a cry had just faded away, the silence loud in his ears.  Something was happening, and the only question was if it was too late to stop it.

York threw himself out of bed, fleetingly grateful that he’d started sleeping in sweats in deference to the encroaching autumn, his bare feet hitting the frozen wood of the floor with barely a sound as he ran for the door.  Outside the living room was just as cold, and the whole house could be carved out of ice for all the warmth it held.  It was dark in the early hours well before dawn, and he stumbled and nearly tripped over the coffee table as he made his way through the living room, but he caught a glimpse of starlight drifting cold and blue through the windows over the door, and found his way into the foyer.

“York!”

He sighed in relief as he heard Carolina’s voice, saw her walking quickly into the foyer to join him, her arms wrapped around herself and her bare shoulders peppered with goose bumps.  Her hair was mussed from sleep and her expression pinched and wary, but she looked unhurt and that was really all that mattered.

“Thank God,” he muttered and drew her close to him, wrapping an arm around her to share the warmth.

“What’s happening?” she demanded, her voice tight behind teeth gritted to keep them from chattering.

“I don’t know,” York said.  The words were almost visible in the mist of his breath.  Even the heat of her body against his wasn’t enough to combat the fierce cold.  It pierced through him like a needle, sharp and insistent, and fear followed it like thread, pulling him taut, every muscle singing with anxiety.  “The whole house is freezing.”

“Is there a draft?” she asked, but for the first time in her adamant denial of all things supernatural she sounded uncertain. 

“From where, Antarctica?”

Carolina didn’t respond.  Instead she pulled away from him, skirting around the darker edges of the room and flipped the light switch.  Above them the great chandelier lit up, yellow flooding the foyer and chasing back the hollow blue glow of the starlight.  York blinked in the sudden brightness, marveling at the way the light could look so much warmer, so much kinder, and yet do nothing about the bone deep chill that permeated the house like the bleakest night of winter. 

For a moment, Carolina simply scanned the room, although York wasn’t sure what she was looking for.  The light of the chandelier seemed to fill every corner, the only darkness their own shadows spreading across the intricate parquet floor.  If there was anything there, it refused to be seen, although whether that meant anything was another matter.  Still she looked, and York held his breath, shaking in the bitter cold and waiting for something to happen.

Seconds ticked by in silence.

Then some of the tension in her shoulders fell away and Carolina seemed to relax a little.  She nodded sharply to herself, and then turned back to him.

“What is causing this?” she said, her voice harsh in the ice on the air.

York took a deep breath, and it bit at his lungs.  He swallowed.

“Carolina,” he started softly.  She glared at him, obviously anticipating what he planned to say.  They both opened their mouths at the same time, determined to stand their ground, but they never got the chance.

_Bang._

York jumped at the sound of a door slamming upstairs, another shutting more softly just after.  He had to turn to see, the stairs looming in his blind side, and he was glad she had turned the light on, the hall on the second floor clear and visible and not hidden in darkness.  He didn’t know if he could stand the added tension of waiting to see what emerged.  Not when it was just their friends coming to investigate.

“York?” North called, heading down the staircase with Maine just a few steps in front of him.  “Carolina?  You two alright?”

“We’re fine,” she said briskly.

“Did you guys wake up in a snow bank, too?” York asked, still shivering.  North had thrown a jacket over his pajamas, but Maine hadn’t had the same foresight and was rubbing his hands up and down his arms in an attempt to keep warm.  “Assuming it’s just as bad up there.  Did the cold wake you or something else?”

“The cold,” North said.  “Are you kidding?  Who could sleep through this?”

Maine nodded vigorously beside him.  He had a point; the temperature in the house was beyond frigid, and it seemed to be sinking lower every moment.  Much subtler than the cold itself was the underlying feeling that suffused every crack of the house, like a strain in the woodwork, a creaking anxiety that threatened to break at any second and bring the building crashing down.  It was a pull in his sternum, faint but unrelenting, a tensing in his muscles that made the tremble in his body ten times worse.  There was apprehension in the air, crystallizing in the mist of every exhale.

No one could sleep through that.

York blinked, and a shiver rolled through him that he wished he could blame on the cold.

“Guys,” he said, and it was hushed but still they turned, recognizing the sudden fear in his voice.  “Guys.  Where’s Wash?”

The words sank into the room on the weight of the realization. For one long second the house seemed to tremble with them, the atmosphere inside stretched taut until it hummed and the only other sound was the almost inaudible crackle of frost as it crept up the windows.  They were suspended in ice, as though time would stop if they remained frozen, and nothing irreversible would have happened if only they took care not to shatter the illusion.

The tension snapped.

Carolina was the first up the stairs, faster than all of them as always, but York was only a few feet behind her, stumbling on the first step before he caught himself, North’s hand on his shoulder to steady him.  He was at the top of the landing when she darted to the end of the hall and threw Wash’s door open, and he heard the strangled, aborted noise she made as she stepped through.  With that tiny sound the strange pull of fear became a heavy, wrenching twist, and dread pooled in his gut as he followed.

“Oh my God,” North whispered from behind him.

He had never seen so much blood.

Wash lay in a pool of dark red, his blankets soaked in the rivers that poured from long cuts up his arms, slit from wrist to elbow.  The room reeked of copper, the air thick with it, and York choked back bile as his stomach rebelled at the smell.  He brought a shaking hand up to cover his mouth and nose, but there was no blocking it, just as nothing could change the horrific tableau spread before them.  It was all he could do not to vomit.

“North, get the first aid kit!” Caroline barked.

While he was caught in shock at the sight of their friend, she had taken only a moment to gather herself and then pressed forward.  Half-crouched on the side of the bed, she had wrapped her hands around the wound on Wash’s arm, and for a moment York couldn’t even process why.  There was so much blood, the whole bed must be covered in it, there couldn’t possibly be anything they could do.  It was too late, he was dead.  _There was so much blood_.

But as he watched he realized that Wash’s arm was moving, his eyelids fluttered weakly, and he could hear a feverish, pained mumble, so low it was almost drowned out by the pounding of his heart.

“York, get over here and help me!” Carolina demanded.  “Maine, get clean towels, now.  GO!”

The spell of horror broken, they moved into action.

York didn’t glance behind him to see if the others were following her orders, he simply did what she said, the knees of his sweatpants soaking up blood as he kneeled across the bed from her.

“What do I do?” he asked, unwilling to touch anything without instruction.

“Apply pressure to the wound,” she said.  “Be gentle but firm.  Help me raise his arms over his heart, it’ll slow the bleeding.”

York tried to do as she told him, his grip unsure on the damaged, sticky flesh of Wash’s right wrist, but it was surprisingly difficult.  Wash was moving, weak, aborted little jerks of his arm that were just enough to pull the slippery limb out of his hands.  It was like he was refusing York’s help, like he didn’t want to be saved.

“Wash,” he said desperately, afraid to fight him when he was ripped open and bleeding, “Wash, what are you doing, man, come on, just let me help you!”

Wash didn’t answer, didn’t even look at him, but his muttering picked up, slurred and delirious.  York couldn’t make out the words but it sounded like a mantra, one phrase repeated on a loop in an eerie undertone, and the unsteady rhythm of it terrified him.

“York, what’s the problem?” Carolina asked, far more calm than he was, but her voice still sharp.

“He won’t let me—Wash, fuck, come on,” York said, grabbing again at his friend’s arm.  It was then that he finally noticed what Wash was holding, his knuckles white as his fingers clenched around the handle of a wicked knife, the three inch blade stained red.  His arms were weak but his grasp was impossibly strong, and with each feeble lurch he brought the knife an inch up and across his body, towards his throat.

“Jesus Christ,” York breathed, stunned and unwilling to believe what he was seeing.  He tried to pry Wash’s hand open, but his fingers were slick and it was taking far longer than he liked, each second ticking by in a pulse of blood until he managed to wrestle the blade away.  He tossed it to the floor, far out of reach, and finally managed to get his hands around the wound.

At some point North had come back, the bed sinking slightly under the weight of the first aid kit as he set the heavy box down next to Carolina.  Maine followed, bringing towels, his face a mess of panicked confusion as he held them out.

“Take a towel,” Carolina told York, “wrap it around his arm, not too tight but with some pressure.”  She did the same, reaching for the medical tape in the kit, and York had to swallow as the sight of it sent a spike of phantom pain through his head.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” North said, but Carolina shook her head.

“We’re too far out,” she said, and the words, too, sounded familiar.  “We’re going to have to meet them halfway.  Maine, can you carry him to the car?”

There was no answer, and Carolina raised her eyes for a second to glare at him.  York finished closing the impromptu bandage around Wash’s arm and followed her gaze.  Maine was standing back, by the door, his skin bloodless and his face blank and shocked.

“Maine!” she said harshly, and he jumped.  “I need you to focus.  Can you carry Wash to the car?”

“Yeah,” Maine said hoarsely, and his hands came up to rub at his arms again.

“Come here, we’ll help you,” Carolina told him.  Maine crossed the room, more hesitant than York had ever seen him, and gathered their bleeding friend into his arms.  Maine was not a delicate person by nature, but he held Wash as though the slightest pressure would shatter him, and York could see the fear in his eyes.  Carolina grabbed the extra towels and the first aid kit and quickly led them out and down the stairs, talking as she went.  “North, you’ll have to drive,” she said.  “York shouldn’t be driving with his injury and you’re better rested than I am.  Maine, you’re going with them.  If blood soaks through the towels you’ll have to wrap another one over top of it, don’t remove the one underneath, just add another layer, got it?”

“Me?” Maine said shakily.

Carolina nodded.

“I’m staying here to call the ambulance to tell them what happened and where to meet you,” she said, opening the front door.  “There won’t be enough room in the back of the car for more than one other person anyway.  You’ve got this.”

“I… okay,” Maine said. 

Carolina handed York the stack of towels and first aid kit, and he followed Maine to the car as she gave North directions to where she would send the ambulance.  Maine wasn’t running, his step delicate and unflinching, but his stride was long and York was half running, half stumbling to keep up, the gravel digging into his bare feet.  North opened the door to the back seat, Carolina darting back inside, back to the phone, and York deposited the supplies in the back before they carefully eased Wash in as fast as they could without jostling him.  He gasped when they set him down on the seat, the sound strangled and pained, a hitch in his breath that caught on the words that still stumbled out of his mouth like it would kill him to stop.  York couldn’t make them out, didn’t understand, but Maine paled further, turning ashen in a way that seemed to mirror the waxy pallor that Wash’s skin was taking on.

York backed away as Maine climbed in, his face set in grim lines, and shut the door.

“You coming?” North asked.  York shook his head wordlessly, unable to articulate why, to   voice the way his heart clenched at the thought of leaving Carolina alone in that house after what had just happened.  North simply nodded, getting in and starting the car.

They drove away, and York watched with a terrible sinking feeling, knowing that it could be the last time he saw Wash alive.

The night air was chilly in the last days of September, but standing under the huge oak where they parked their cars York still felt warmer than he had inside.  A breeze started up, shaking the treetops into whispers and jostling loose the few leaves that were already starting to turn.  One leaf fluttered down to land near his foot, green that looked almost gray in the dark, shot through with veins of vivid yellow, and he looked at it blankly for a moment before reaching down to pick it up.  He stopped short, his hand extended, staring at the red streaks that coated his fingers, and shuddered.

He should get back inside.

“Carolina?” he called as he walked through the door.  He could hear her voice in the other room, quick and sure, always the one to take charge in a tough situation, and he didn’t call again, knowing he should wait for her to finish.  Inside the foyer was warmer than he expected, the cold somehow dissipating while they were too panicked to notice.  It felt just like any other night in early fall, cool and quiet.

Except that there was blood on his hands.

York ripped his eye away again, determined to look at anything else.  Wash might still make it, he told himself firmly.  He was a stubborn kid, and York trusted Carolina to know what she was doing.  Taking a shaky breath, he tried to calm his racing heart, his gaze drifting as he did. 

The center of the house was brightly lit, the chandelier throwing a golden glow onto the parquet of the foyer and beyond, defusing as it reached the living room where he could just make out Carolina standing by the phone.  The light was almost sunny, strangely warm and comforting, as though it were trying to make up for the rude awakening, the freezing cold and terrible panic that had spread through the house like a fog.  After the darkness outside it was almost dazzling.

Maybe that’s why it took him so long before he noticed.

York stared, and his body locked.

“Okay,” he heard Carolina say, coming into the foyer.  Her voice was strong but there were cracks in the steel of it, as though any new pressure would break her now that her role was done.  “Okay.  They’re on their way.  If they both make it to the meeting spot in good time I think Wash will be alright.  He’s… He’ll be okay.”

She paused, probably expecting assurance or agreement, but he had nothing to give, his attention still caught.

“York?” she prompted.  He still didn’t look at her, didn’t want to look away.

“Carolina,” he murmured, tilting his head in the direction of his gaze.  “Carolina, look.”

There was a shadow on the stairs.

It was a blur on the wall halfway to the second floor, black against the woodwork.  The light of the chandelier shone down from above, and their own shadows were small behind them.  There was nothing that would cast a shadow like that, no angle that would form the vague shape of a person looking down on them, motionless, like a smudge of charcoal smeared against the wall.  York knew immediately that it wasn’t like the light in his room, the clinical examination of whatever or whoever it was that seemed so interested in his studies.  It was a dark stain that seemed to suck in all the light around it, a black hole burned into the fabric of reality.

It was watching them.

“You,” he heard Carolina say, her voice strangled.  For a moment nothing happened, and then she moved forward, stepped in front of him, and when she spoke again he could see her shaking.

“ _Get out_ ,” she said, her words seething with hatred, volume rising with every second.  “I don’t know who you are or what you want but I’ve had enough.  This is my goddamned home and I won’t let you hurt any more of my friends.  Get out.  _GET OUT!_ ”

Her voice rang through the foyer as she stood before him like a shield, her whole body shuddering, not with fear but with anger.  Her red hair was loose and wild, falling around her face in a stream like blood, matching the vivid smears on her hands and arms.  For a moment she was all he could see, looming, dangerous, a furious mother bear about to rip any threat into shreds.  He reached out with his own bloody hand, grabbing hers in silent support, and together they could face anything without fear.

Then the shadow moved.

The dark shape seemed to jump between blinks, one moment halfway up the stairs and then suddenly right in front of them, a void painted on the basement door, and York’s breath caught in a tiny gasp.  Carolina squeezed his hand but she didn’t look back, kept her head high and her jaw set.  Silence echoed in the foyer, and then with a spark, with a fizzle, the lights began to stutter.

In the flickering darkness it shifted in the strobe of the light.  It was like watching the footage from an old security camera, black and white shapes jerking unnaturally in the low frame rate.  Its head tilted left, then right, the movement chopped and uneven, and York could almost hear the cracking of the joints of its neck.  It raised its arms in a juddering motion, its fists clenched and ready for a fight.

The lights flared and went out, the whole room plunging into darkness.

“ _Shit_ ,” York said, jumping at a sudden harsh pull on his arm before he realized that it was Carolina, dragging him over towards the wall.

“Oh no you fucking don’t,” she roared, reaching for the light switch and flipping it off, on, light blooming again and blinding them with the contrast.  By the time he had blinked the spots from his vision the shadow was gone.

“Fuck,” Carolina spat, dropping his hand and tangling her fingers in her hair.  “ _Fuck!_ ”

“Hey, Carolina, it’s okay,” York said with as much confidence as he could muster.  He tried to move her hands back down, to hold them, but the blood on them was turning tacky, strands of her hair sticking and pulling and he was only making it worse, adding to the mess.  “It’s gone.”

“No,” she growled, and her eyes were green fire. “No, it isn’t.”

She tore herself away from him, marching back towards the living room with an angry scowl, leaving him standing in the foyer bewildered.

“What are you doing?” he asked, trailing after her with a quick glance around to make sure they were really alone.

“I’m ending this,” she snarled, and she picked up the phone, fitting her fingers to the red prints already marking the white plastic.

He watched, nonplussed, as she dialed, waited, and then turned to face away from him, the conversation apparently private.  He had the feeling that one of them had lost the plot somewhere along the line, but at least Carolina was on the same page as the rest of them now.  Rather than stand around uselessly, he stepped back into the foyer and tried to examine the space on the wall where the phantom had appeared.

It was unremarkable, not that he was surprised.  Nothing was left behind, the wood panels smooth and unmarred, as though it had been a real shadow and not something more sinister.  Unthinking, he tried to run a hand over the space, grimacing at the smear of blood he put on the wall. 

He needed to clean up, he thought, the weight of exhaustion starting to pull at him.  It would be dawn soon, the darkness outside receding into the blue hour before the sun rose, too late to go back to bed, not that he thought he could.  The events of the night would be replaying themselves in his head for hours, and there would be no chance of rest until he knew the outcome.  Not until he knew whether or not Wash would survive.

He swallowed and rested his forehead against the basement door.  He didn’t even want to think about the alternative, but it had been there in the back of his mind since they had found their friend lying in a pool of his own blood.  It would be there until someone made the call to inform them of his fate.  North, probably.  Maine wasn’t great with words and was even worse on the phone.  Until then he would be stuck wondering, wondering if there was something more he could have done, wondering if they were too late, if they could have found him faster, wondering if they had let their friend die because instead of going to look for him they had been standing around bitching about the cold.

York’s thoughts ground to a halt.

“The cold,” he muttered to himself, frowning, trying to place the sudden nagging feeling that he had missed something.

The cold had woken them, frigid temperatures spreading through the house on a wave of anxiety and terror until everyone was roused from their beds.  It had been freezing, the air so icy it was impossible to ignore, but it had faded when they found Wash.  It had faded, and it hadn’t come back.  The foyer was warm when he came back into the house, it was warm when he spotted the shadow.

It was warm, and he had felt no fear.

York looked at the empty walls of the foyer and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell was going on.

 

*

 

When North came back from the hospital CT was with him, walking into the living room a half step behind and dragging her feet.  Her eyes were red and her face still wet, and Carolina’s breath stuttered when she saw her, for one heart-stopping moment wondering if the call that morning had been a dream, a memory she had invented because the only other possibility was too terrible to think about.

No, she thought firmly.  She had no time for doubt, she couldn’t afford to invent new horrors.  Reality was bad enough without catastrophizing, and CT had a right to be upset.  Nothing else had happened, no one else was hurt.

Still, there was no harm in checking.

“Any news?” she asked.

North shook his head, and she could breathe again.

“Where’s Maine?” she asked even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

“Still at the hospital,” he replied.  “They kicked us out of the room, but he wanted to stay in case there were any changes.”

“We’ll have to make sure he gets something to eat,” Carolina murmured absently.  “Some sleep.”

“Both things that the rest of us could use as well,” North said pointedly.  “Did anyone get any sleep last night?”

No one answered.

Saturday morning had come and gone in a tired mess of stress and anxiety.  The call had come in not long after dawn; Wash was alive, they had made it in time.  Carolina had sat down hard at the news, her iron control finally crumbling as the danger passed and leaving her almost dizzy with exhaustion.  York had needed to pry the phone from her numb fingers, asking his own questions before hanging up and bringing her gently to the sofa where they both collapsed.  He had held her, as much for his own comfort as for hers, his body shaking against her back, and they sat in the quiet light of dawn as it grew bright and strong around them, unwilling to break further, unable to let go. 

Sleep had not been an option.

North sighed, leaning tiredly on the wall of the archway to the foyer.

“Wash is stable,” he said, and it needed to be repeated, Carolina realized.  It needed to be said as many times as it took for that knowledge to replace the image of sheets soaked red and the memory of blood drying sticky on her hands.  “He’s out of danger now.  Physically, he’ll be fine.”

“Physically,” York repeated dully.  He ran a hand through his hair and let out an incredulous, ugly laugh.  “Jesus.  I still can’t believe… Why would Wash _do_ that to himself?”

“He wouldn’t,” CT snapped, speaking up for the first time.  “He knew we were here if he ever needed help with anything.  He had no reason to… he _wouldn’t_.”

But he did, Carolina thought but didn’t say into the hollow silence.  He did and we don’t know why.

“He was muttering something,” York said suddenly.  “The whole time we were trying to help him, all the way out to the car, but I couldn’t really hear what it was.  Carolina, did you…?”

She tried to remember, but beyond an adrenaline blurred haze and the panic brewing beneath all the steel her willpower could muster to bury it the night was just a sequence of horrible images and feelings in her head.  The cold, the dark, the blood, the blood, the blood.  She couldn’t recall if she had heard Wash say anything as she knelt beside him.  She’d mostly been working on autopilot, falling back on her old first aid training so she wouldn’t have to think too much about her friend dying under her hands. 

She shook her head, coming up blank.

“I have to get out.”

The words fell into the conversation like a weight.  It was North who said it, from the edge of the room, his arms crossed and his gaze distant.  His tone was matter of fact, a flat statement, but something in it chilled her.  She stared at him, and when he finally noticed he just shrugged, his expression tired and grim. 

“He was saying it in the car, too,” he said.  “And in the ambulance, I think.  When we got to the hospital he was already in the ER, but they told us later that they had to sedate him.  He just kept saying it, over and over.  I have to get out, I have to get out.”

CT sat down in the chair by the phone and buried her hands in her hair.

“Fuck,” she said thickly.  “ _Fuck_.  We knew this place was bad.  I _knew_ it was wearing him down, why didn’t we fucking _do_ anything?”

“I have to get out,” York repeated, frowning thoughtfully.  It was the same face he turned on particularly difficult homework problems, like he knew he was missing some key element but still couldn’t grasp the last piece of the puzzle.  Looking up, he caught her eyes.  “Carolina, was his door locked when you went into his room?”

“No,” she said immediately.  The house was old but the locks were solid, and she would remember if she had been forced to break down the door.

“I have to get out,” York said again, and Carolina wanted to bleach the words from her mind.  “Get out of what?  What was stopping him from just leaving?  What was so goddamned terrible that he would rather kill himself than call for help?”

“Psychotic break,” North said tonelessly.  “Latent schizophrenia.”

York and Carolina turned to stare at him, a study in incredulity.  CT only shook her head, her mouth screwed up in anger.

“That’s what the Director said.”

“The _Director?_ ” York spluttered.  Carolina wished she could be offended by the slight disgust in his voice, but she just didn’t have the energy to care.  “What the hell was he doing there?”

“He’s the one that kicked us out,” CT said bitterly.  “Showed up a couple of hours ago, asking questions, and then told us all to go home, said he had everything under control.  Whatever that means.”

 “How did he even find out about this?”

“I called him,” Carolina said, and York turned to her, looking almost betrayed.  “Wash needs help,” she explained.  “They do psych evals after all suicide attempts, I wanted to make sure he had the best care.”

“You want to send Wash to Dymphna’s,” York surmised.  “Carolina, you can’t be fucking serious.”

“They sent Wyoming to Dymphna’s,” North said.  His tone was void of an opinion on the matter, just stating a fact, but his eyes had become sharp, attentive and almost severe.

“Wash isn’t Wyoming!” York said angrily.  “That place is practically a prison, he shouldn’t be there.  He didn’t hurt anyone.”

“He hurt himself,” Carolina said harshly.  She took a breath through her nose, trying to organize her thoughts in a way the others would accept.  “He needs help,” she stressed.  “Help we can’t give him, York.  Help that they can.  Maybe they’ll be able to find out why he did it.”

 “Carolina,” North said, and she knew by the thread of anger in his voice that he was prepared to restart their little argument, but she was done with it.

“I don’t know what’s happening here,” she admitted, interrupting him.  “But I know that we are not equipped to handle it.  Even CT couldn’t find an explanation, any reason these things should be here.”

“But they are,” York said, the others watching her, waiting to see how she responded.

She nodded.

“They are,” she agreed, and just like that half of the tension bled away.  “But that doesn’t mean there’s anything we can do to stop them.”

“I can keep digging,” CT suggested, wiping her eyes and setting her shoulders firmly.  “I did find a few things in the records that were… weird.  I was going to ask you about it, but I didn’t think it was related.  I could look into it.”

“No need,” Carolina replied.  “There was another reason I called the Director.  He owns the house, it’s his property and ultimately his call.  I told him what’s been going on here and he agreed that we should get help.”

“Help?” York repeated skeptically.  “What exactly is his idea of help in this scenario?”

“He’s called in an expert,” she told them.

“An expert.  Okay, sure.  And who is our haunted house expert?”

“A respected psychologist.  He’s been studying parapsychology on the side for years, and he’s an old friend of the Director’s.  If anyone in this business is legitimate, it’s him.  His name is Aidan Price.”

“Never heard of him,” York said snidely.

“I have,” said CT, her eyebrows knitting together in a worried frown.  “The name came up in my preliminary research, when I was looking up hauntings to see if there was any sort of pattern similar to ours.” 

She hesitated, biting her lip.

“They call him the Counselor of the Dead.”

 

*

 

Aiden Price was a hard man to measure.  If he had met him on the street, York would not have guessed he was old enough to be a colleague of the Director’s.  His face exhibited that kind of strange agelessness that could mean he was twenty or sixty, his expression so completely bland that he’d probably never have a wrinkle in his life, his dark brown skin unused to creasing for something so revealing as a smile or a frown.  He had a soft voice, a calming demeanor, as though his every word and action were designed to be as soothing as possible.

More than the house, more than any of the ghosts he might have met there, this guy gave York the heebie jeebies.

“Your story is certainly very interesting,” the Counselor was saying in a tone like satin, so smooth it was almost slippery.

It was late evening and they had gathered in the living room when the man arrived.  Not even a full day had passed since the terrifying cold had swept through the house, waking them barely in time to save their friend, and not a single one of them had been able to get any real rest.  North had brought Maine back to the house around dinner time, dragging him away from the hospital in a way York wouldn’t have believed if he didn’t see how oddly small the normally imposing football player looked when he walked in.  His shoulders were hunched, curved inward like something was pressing down on his spine, and York didn’t think he’d ever seen him look so defeated.  

According to North the hospital had locked down Wash’s room.  They were preparing to move him to Dymphna’s in the morning and refused to allow visitors of any kind, saying they might upset the patient.  Once he was at the asylum it was anyone’s guess if they would be allowed to see him at all.  York hadn’t liked the sound of that.  He didn’t think anyone did.  CT was visibly angry, North’s expression was unusually grim, and even Carolina looked troubled at the news.  Maine had just disappeared upstairs without a word, his face haggard and his fists clenched.

Price had come knocking not long after that.

“Do you believe us?” Carolina asked him point blank, never one to beat around the bush.

The Counselor looked surprised, his eyebrows rising a bare fraction of an inch, which was probably the most genuine emotion he’d displayed in their company.  Then he smiled slightly, the smallest curl of the lips, a sharp glitter in his eyes.

“I don’t need to, Miss Church,” he said.

In his place next to her on the couch, York felt her stiffen.

“Just Carolina is fine,” she said tightly.  “What do you mean, exactly?”

He shifted minutely, the old chair creaking underneath him, and it seemed to York that he looked oddly satisfied, somehow, although his expression hardly flickered.

“Only that belief, Carolina, is typically something required in the absence of fact,” he answered.  “There is no doubt here.  I knew from the moment I first stepped inside your house that it was unusual, and your experiences only prove just how extraordinary it is.”

“Okay, what does that mean?” York wondered aloud.  “Extraordinary?  Extraordinary in what way?”

“Oh, the design of the building,” he answered vaguely.  “The flow of the place, the energy.  It all combines in a very unique and fascinating fashion.  Unfortunately, the metaphysics of architecture can be a bit dull and technical to the uninterested.  I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.”

York frowned, not missing the fact that his question wasn’t really answered.  He was half blind, not stupid.

“You got here awfully fast,” he commented instead of calling him out on the evasion.

“I work in town,” the Counselor replied.  “And I came as soon as I heard, as a favor to the Director.”

“So you know each other well, then?” CT asked.

Price’s expression never seemed to change.

“We were colleagues for a time, although our paths diverged when I began to seriously study parapsychology.  He is a brilliant, driven man.  I was happy to offer my help when he called me, and I will do whatever I can to… shed light on your problem.”

“Something we should maybe get back to,” Carolina said, eyeing York pointedly. 

York shrugged, unrepentant.  Something about Price just didn’t sit well with him.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to trust someone who gave so little away to the world but seemed to take in everything it had to offer without the slightest blink.  Of course, it was possible that a certain implacability was necessary when a man spent his life studying death and what came after.  Price looked like the kind of person who could stare down an angry ghost with nothing more than a bland smile.

Maybe that calm was just what they needed, York thought, but that didn’t make it any less creepy.

 “Yes, of course,” the Counselor said.  “After hearing your descriptions of the events, I think I must agree with your friend North here’s assessment.”

“How’s that?” North asked in slight surprise.

“These apparitional experiences, these hauntings if you would like, are so individual, so unique in relation to each other, it seems very unlikely that they all have the same cause.”

“So we do have more than one ghost,” North concluded.

“I would appear so,” he agreed.  “Your little friend upstairs, the intense scrutiny York feels when he studies, your friend Wyoming’s episode, Maine’s blackouts, the ominous cold, and the shadowy figure you believe is trying to bar you from the attic.  All of these manifestations present themselves in specific locations and in separate ways with unique signs and psychologies.”

“And Wash?” York asked.

Price tilted his head, half nodding.  Even his movements seemed designed to be minimal and inoffensive, York thought, watching him uneasily.

“Likely caused by yet another apparition,” he said.  “Unless any of the rest of you have lately dealt with depressive episodes or felt the need to commit self-harm?”

“No,” North said.  “No, I don’t think so.”

Everyone else shook their heads.

“That’s at least seven different ghosts,” CT said, looking faintly ill.

“But no one has ever died here,” Carolina protested once again, no longer denying the evidence of her own experiences but still questioning the inconsistency. 

“Haven’t they?” Price murmured.

York expected CT to answer, to defend her research, but she stayed quiet, giving the Counselor an intense, suspicious look.

“Regardless,” the man went on, “it may not matter.  What is often referred to as a ‘ghost’ is not always the spirit of a departed person, as the media would like us to believe.  These apparitions are sometimes simple, leftover pockets of psychic energy trapped in place.  They can be thought of as emotional echoes, feelings that repeat themselves, often in patterns or at certain intervals, like a sound bouncing back off the far wall of a canyon, heard seconds or minutes later.”

“But these aren’t just sounds,” North pointed out.  “These things are affecting us, hurting people.”

“When enough energy has built up it always seeks a release,” Price said.  “Sometimes this can cause certain phenomena to occur; objects moving, foreign emotions imposing themselves on a person or environment.  They have character, they may seem almost sentient, but they are merely fragments of a life long gone, they are hardly people.  They may seem to exert their will on the living, but I assure you that they move in simple patterns with no intention behind them.”

“Feels pretty deliberate to me,” York muttered, running a hand delicately over the scars forming on his face.

“I’ll admit that from your descriptions these are by far the strongest echoes I’ve ever seen.  It is also the first time I have encountered so many in one place, and with such diverse personalities,” the Counselor said, and York didn’t like the way his eyes shone with something he couldn’t really label, something more than simple excitement.  “It is extremely unusual.  You may have an actual spirit in the house as well that’s somehow strengthening the echoes, somewhere you have yet to encounter it.”

“The attic,” York said.

The Counselor nodded.

“That seems the most likely, yes,” he agreed, his gaze still almost unnervingly steady.  “Have you made another attempt to enter the attic?”

“No,” North answered quietly.  “Some of us were a little more wary after what happened the last time.”

“Plus we don’t actually have another hammer,” York added.  “And no one really wants to use the old one anymore.  Why?  Should we?”

“It’s probably for the best that you don’t,” the Counselor said, his voice smooth, silken, and not even a fraction too quick. “Whatever is in the attic may be far more dangerous than the echoes that haunt the rest of the house, and if approaching the attic is itself a trigger for violence, avoiding it may be the wisest path to take for now.”

“But what _is_ in the attic?” CT asked pointedly.

Price gave her a small smile.

“I couldn’t say,” he murmured.  “Something that wishes to be left alone, it would seem.”

“This is all very interesting,” Carolina said, impatience leaking into her voice and tensing her muscles, “but can you _do_ anything about it?”  
 York reached a hand out to steady her knee, which was starting to jiggle.  She glanced at him, but made no move to respond.

Price was silent for a long moment, and York thought it might be easier to read the future in a set of cards than figure out what was going on behind that placid face.

“You wish to remove the spirits here?” he asked eventually.

“I want my house to be safe again,” Carolina said.

“I think we’ve had enough injuries for a lifetime,” North put in.

York snorted.

“It would be kind of nice to be able to go to sleep and actually be sure you’ll wake up in the morning,” he said wryly.

CT didn’t say anything at all.

“I’m afraid that’s not something that anyone can be truly sure of, York,” Price said.  “But I can clear the house for you, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s all I’m asking for,” Carolina said with some obvious relief.

“Then I will need to make the necessary preparations, and pick up some equipment and supplies.”

“Equipment?” CT repeated.  “What kind of equipment?  Anything complicated?”

Price gave her yet another bland, inscrutable smile.

“If this sort of thing were easy or simple,” he said, “anyone could do it.”

“So what, you don’t want to give away trade secrets?  You worried about job security?” York said flippantly.  “Because I’ve gotta tell you, man, we’re not exactly interested in doing this ever again.  I think your job’s safe.”

“I was only making an observation,” the Counselor replied.  “I will contact the Director about fees and other technicalities.  I will also need to be able to move freely in the house with no interruptions or distractions.”

“Wait, you want us to let you wander around the house by yourself?” York asked.

“It is a delicate process that will need some time to complete,” he answered calmly, not even blinking at the slight suspicion in York’s tone.

“But—”

“When can you start?” Carolina interrupted.

“Tomorrow,” Price said.  “If I start preparations immediately I can clear the house for you before the end of the day.”

“Do it,” she said, and when York turned to protest he saw that her jaw was set and her eyes hard.

He shut his mouth and leaned back, crossing his arms but saying nothing.  He wanted to argue.  He wanted to point out the gleam in the Counselor’s eyes, the strange tension in his form and the curdling anxiety in York’s own gut.  Across the room he saw North glance over and their gazes locked.  North shrugged, a slight worried frown flitting across his face, and York slumped.

Carolina was right about one thing.  Something needed to be done, fast, before anyone else could get hurt.  He reached up again to gingerly brush against the corner of his eye patch, and he hoped that they were making the right move.

 

*

 

“Did anyone else think that bag looked kinda heavy?” York wondered from his seat on the hood of Carolina’s truck.  He kicked his heels idly, face thoughtful as he watched the house.  Carolina sighed, and told herself to let it pass.

“He did say he was bringing equipment,” North responded calmly.  He was leaning against the same vehicle, his thumb running absently over the unopened textbook in his hand but his eyes trained on the house, never straying from the balcony outside his room.

Carolina wished she’d thought to bring a book.

“I thought I heard it clank when he put it down,” York continued.  “Didn’t you?  I definitely heard a clank.  Like there was something metal inside.”

“And?”  North asked.  “He never said what kind of equipment it was.  Not everything paranormal has to involve dripping candles and ancient skulls, York.”

“I guess,” York conceded.  He kicked the grill of the truck again and Carolina reached out and caught his calf on the next downswing, shooting him an irritated glare.  Blinking in surprise, he looked down at her, then her truck, and gave her a sheepish look.  It only lasted for half a second before he hopped down, choosing to lean next to North and crossing his arms, fingers tapping with no rhythm or consistency against his own skin.

“I still think it’s weird he won’t let us see what he’s doing in there,” he said.

“Maybe he’s shy,” North murmured absently, still watching his empty window.

“Maybe he’s got something to hide,” York countered sullenly.

Nobody deigned to respond to his comment, and they all lapsed into silence.

On Sunday afternoon the whole group of them had been exiled to the front lawn.  Price had been inside for over an hour.  True to his word, he had arrived at noon with a hefty duffle bag and an almost excited determination.  York had declared the night before that Price was sketchy, gave him the creeps, but Carolina suspected the man acted the way he did deliberately, building up the atmosphere around his craft.  There couldn’t be many houses that had as much ghostly activity as theirs, he had said he’d never seen anything like it, after all, so the people who would typically call him for help were probably more than willing to believe in the strange and unusual.  Maybe they appreciated the dramatics.  They probably bought his all-knowing seer routine hook, line, and sinker.  Maybe it made them feel better.

It didn’t help Carolina.  An affected air of calm wasn’t enough to soothe the prickles under her skin, the constant feeling that something was wrong, a nagging itch that she hadn’t been able to shake all day.  It was a stutter in her thoughts, that strange sensation that insisted she had missed something important and every minute that passed brought her back to it, like a needle skipping back on a scratched record.

She clenched her fists.

It didn’t matter, she told herself firmly, shifting against the truck and just wishing for it all to be finished.  It was only after they had been shooed out of the house that she realized, still hazy from the lack of sleep, that they had not been informed exactly how long they would have to wait.  The weather was fine but they were all too keyed up to want to go anywhere, and York in particular was loudly disinterested in leaving the grounds while Price was in the house.  Carolina had no idea what he expected to do or to stop from happening just by being there, but she was too exhausted to argue about it, opting to stay with them in a quiet, uneasy vigil.

She took a deep breath and forced her hands to relax.

Once Price had done his job they could all go back to their lives.  The shadow would be conquered, that cold, malicious presence gone from her house and her dreams, and there would be no more danger.  That prickling, itching anxiety would fade into memory, just a fleeting paranoia that had haunted her tired mind.  Maybe they would laugh about it one day, how it all seemed so impossible and daunting when the solution was so simple; all they needed to do was call in reinforcements.

She would beat this thing.

They watched the house quietly, waiting for something they didn’t quite know how to anticipate.  No one knew exactly what was happening inside, but no matter how long they waited nothing seemed to change.  The sun was bright and the sky a clear, cloudless blue, but the house still seemed somehow dull, lifeless and gray.  The building cast little shadow in the mid-afternoon, but standing nearby it felt as though it radiated darkness.  It was almost hard to look at, but even harder to look away.

Carolina closed her eyes to shut out the image and tilted her head back.  When she opened them again all she could see was the deep, endless blue of the sky, light cyan at the edges of her vision and darkening to a beautiful cobalt blue at its zenith.  For a moment the aching in her bones seemed to fade, the twitch in her muscles subsiding as she took a long breath and told herself again that everything would be okay.  She could make it right again.

“Do you think it’ll work?”

Carolina sighed and swung her head back down to look at York.  His fingers were still tapping away unevenly on his arm, his expression muddled and unsure.  He was both too close and too far away at the same time, his fidgeting a jittery refrain that she wanted to reach out and forcibly still.

“Of course it will work,” she told him, firm and confident, her voice and her convictions never wavering.  It would work.  It had to work.

York looked at her and didn’t say anything, his fingers still tap tap tapping away, and she reached out and grabbed his hand.

“It will work,” she said forcefully.  He made a face at the words, his features twisting in a way she didn’t quite understand, but squeezed her hand when she threaded their fingers together, moving to stand closer to him in the cool fall air.

“I know it needs to be done,” North said, finally breaking his own thoughtful silence, “but I have to admit that I’ll miss him.”

“What?” York asked, startled.  “Miss who?”

“The ghost in my room,” North replied, still staring up at the windows of the house, his eyes creased at the corners with something like sadness.  “He was just a kid.  He never did any harm.”

“Well, I don’t think exorcism comes with a select option,” York said.  “You can’t exactly pick and choose.”

“Passing on,” North corrected.

“What?”

“You exorcise demons,” he said, breaking his gaze for the first time and giving York an exasperated look.  “Or people who are possessed.  You help ghosts pass on.”

York gave him a doubtful look.

“So what, all these creepy bastards need is a little therapy?”

North shrugged.

“There’s probably a reason they call him the Counselor,” he pointed out.

York looked back to the house, chewing his lip.

“And that’s something that can be done in a few hours in one afternoon,” he said, not a question but a statement ladled with heavy skepticism.

“York, seriously,” Carolina said.  “Stop.  They aren’t really ghosts anyway, remember?  The man knows what he’s doing, and he came highly recommended.”

“Yeah, by the Director,” York muttered.

“ _York._ ”

“Sorry,” he sighed, and he actually did sound a little chagrined.  “It’s just… you always sound so sure of everything.  I mean… you sounded pretty sure that the house wasn’t haunted at all three days ago, and then Wash—” he cut himself off and looked away.  “Sorry,” he muttered again.

Carolina closed her eyes again and counted her breaths.  She knew that York wasn’t blaming her for what happened to Wash, not really, but that didn’t make her feel any less responsible.  If she had listened, if she had taken action sooner, maybe he would still be with them and not lying drugged and bandaged in an institution with no known release date.  Wash would get better, she believed that, but plenty of damage had already been done.  That was on her.  He might have died, all because she was unwilling to do anything a day earlier, unable to entertain their wild theories that for no reason she could fathom had turned out to hold far too much truth.

That was the crux of it, the thing that still made no sense to her.

The house was haunted.  She had always known there were ghosts in the halls, memories that clamored for attention, but she had never thought it could be so literal, or so dangerous.  Even now, when she had come to accept it as reality, she simply couldn’t figure out _why_.

“I just don’t understand,” she finally admitted.  North and York both looked at her, North with a patient air and York still fidgeting, his nervous energy tripping out of his body in shifting feet and twitching fingers that twisted into the hem of his gold shirt.  Nearby, just out of earshot, CT and Maine stood under the great oak tree, looking on with grim expressions as the house stayed static, dark and ominous in the isolated clearing.  CT was saying something, but Carolina couldn’t hear it and she was sure it wasn’t meant for her anyway.  She had been acting strange since she arrived, doling out odd, calculating glances and narrow looks that Carolina didn’t have the patience or the energy to decipher.  Carolina looked away and back to her audience, still waiting for an explanation.

“The house wasn’t haunted,” she said, and when York opened his mouth she raised a hand to halt his rebuttal.  “It wasn’t,” she insisted with no vehemence.  “When I was a girl, I was the only one in this house besides my father, I’m… sure of that.”

She resolutely ignored their doubtful looks, the prickling ache in her skin and her heart, and continued talking.

“The things that are happening now… the cold, the… the _attacks_ ,” she ground out, pushing away the thoughts of blood on her hands, blood on the sheets, blood that fell like tears, “they’ve never happened before.  I would remember something like that.  It was just a normal house.  A big, empty house, but that was it.”

“But you haven’t lived here for years,” York said.  “You were off at school and the Director had the run of the place.  Anything could have happened here!”

“York,” North said, his tone slightly chiding, and Carolina couldn’t help but feel a little grateful for the backup.  York could dislike her father all he wanted and she wouldn’t even blame him, not after what she had told him, but the ever increasing hostility was starting to wear on her.  The Director was just a lost, grieving man who never got it back together after the love of his life died and left him with a child he couldn’t handle in his pain.  The man wasn’t a murderer.  He was just a really shitty father.

“Anything could have happened,” York repeated, glancing at North and relenting a little.  “And, okay, the Director wasn’t even here all that long.  The house was empty before we got here, right?  Strangers could have wandered in and gotten themselves killed on the property somehow, or there could have been an accident of some kind.  For all you know, a serial killer could have been stashing bodies in your basement!”

Carolina leveled him with a flat look, and North rolled his eyes, shifting back to stare at the house again.

“I’m just saying,” York said defensively.  “You weren’t here for a long time, and there’s _something_ going on in this place.  It was pretty damn obvious to everyone else.  Why did you fight it so hard?”

Carolina wished she had a solid answer.  The truth was she wasn’t entirely sure why it felt so wrong to entertain their theories.  She didn’t really know what about it made her ache and itch and want to run until she collapsed, breathless and heaving.  She had no words for the way it made her feel, directionless and floundering, like the compass she had used to guide her life had turned out all along to point in the wrong direction.  Like a little girl again, learning that there was no one to comfort her.

“It’s my home,” she finally said, and she didn’t know why that one truth was what she always came back to, just that it meant something, like the tension in her body, like the urge to move and run and fight, something she could never properly describe.  It was written on her heart, in the words of a song.  “I should be safe here.”

The silence that followed her admission was heavy and almost pitying, and Carolina hated it.  Then York moved, his arm slipping around her waist and drawing her close.

“Hey,” he said softly.  “I’m… sorry that I’ve been such an asshole about this.  I just… it’s been hard, y’know?  Shit’s been happening so fast.”

She nodded, refusing to let her gaze linger on the eye patch he still wore, on the livid, scarring cuts around it.  It was hard to believe that a little over a week ago, everything had been fine.  Maybe because it hadn’t, she thought bitterly.  She’d just been too stubborn to see what was wrong.

“Don’t apologize,” she said, and what she meant was _I’m sorry._   “It’ll be over soon.  Price will do his job and then we can go back to normal, put all this behind us.  We can beat this, I know we can.  I just… I need to feel like you’re on my side.”

York didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Carolina felt her heart sink.  Before it could become a tremble in her fingers, a stutter in her lungs, she steeled herself and began to pull away from him, but his grip was tight on her hip. 

He held on, not restrictive but firm, a sideways embrace that reminded her of a drunken confession that seemed so long ago, of a mumbled fear and a promise she never felt she could make.  It was enough to keep her there until he spoke again.

“Carolina,” he started, his voice low and serious, threaded with uncharacteristic worry that stilled her.  “I know you’re not the type to just sit back and let things happen.  You’re a fighter, a… a mover.  You want to control where you’re going and how you get there.  And I respect the hell out of that, you know I do.  That focus, that… that control might be the only reason Wash is still alive.  Because you knew what to do, because you kept fighting, because you wouldn’t give up.  But…”

He paused for a second, struggling to find the words he wanted.

“That kind of focus,” he said slowly, “can be blinding.  It can keep you from seeing when to take a step back, and there are some things...”

He took a breath, his expression unusually pensive, and she watched him with an uncertainty that she wished she could stamp out.

“If Price is right,” he said, and then he paused and snorted, making a face.  “If the _Counselor_ is right,” he said instead, “about these things, these ghosts, about what they are…”

He trailed off again and then shook his head.

“You can’t fight the past, Carolina,” he said.  “You can face it or you can run from it, but you can’t _fight_ it, not forever.  The past isn’t something that’s going to change.  Whether you accept it or you don’t, whether you remember it or just try like hell to ignore it, you can’t erase it.  You can’t fight it.  You can let it in or you can let it go, and that’s it.”

Carolina stared at him for a long moment and then looked away, her jaw set as her eyes fell on the dark eaves of the house.  She knew he might have a point, but it sounded like such clichés.  He just didn’t understand.  She wasn’t looking to change the past, wasn’t battling her childhood demons or loneliness or whatever he seemed to think.  She had buried that part of herself a long time ago and she had no interest in digging it up.  But if the past came to her, if it was hurting her friends, if it was spoiling for a fight, then she would meet it, fists raised.

There was nothing else she could do.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t contradict him, knowing it would do no good.  She couldn’t voice the need she felt to destroy the thing that had hurt him, had threatened her.  Whatever it was in her house, whether it moved like a ghost or a memory, she was going to get rid of it.  She was going to beat it, and she was going to take back her home.

All she needed was support.

“You know I’m not exactly lining up to be the Director’s best friend,” York continued, unaware of her thoughts.  “No offense, but the guy is… kind of a dick.  And I still think that Price is creepy.  But…I guess that whatever is happening in there now is better than us beating our heads against the wall and yelling at shadows.  I…”

He sighed. 

“I am on your side, Carolina,” he said finally.  “I believe in _you._   If you trust him… well, if you think this’ll work…”

“It will,” she said again, because she didn’t know what she would do if it didn’t.  She didn’t know what she _could_ do, and the very thought set her teeth on edge.  It would work.  It had to.

He nodded and gave her waist a light squeeze.

“Then it will,” he said confidently.  “I mean, in my experience once you’ve set your mind to do something there’s no stopping you.  I’ve never seen a hurdle you couldn’t jump.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes.  Nearby North was watching them with a small, fond smile, pretending to give them space even as he clearly listened in.  When she met his gaze he nodded, and the faith in his eyes settled something in her bones.  She felt grounded again for the first time in days, York’s arm around her a longed for support, North’s patience a quiet constant, and CT and Maine’s solidarity just a few steps away.  She settled into York’s embrace, trying to relax the knot in her stomach and hold on to that feeling, wished she could be sure it wasn’t fleeting.

Then York spoke again.

“It’ll be okay,” he murmured.  “You’ll see.  You’ll be safe here again.”

The words should have been comforting; they were what she needed to hear, what she wanted to hear, but they felt wrong when he said them, like an echo that had warped and faded, come back distorted by sharp angles and the drag of time.  Carolina suppressed a shiver and tried to ignore the return of the prickle and itch under her skin, that nagging sensation back again to eat at her insides.  She looked up at the cold sky, bright and blue and never-ending, and she thought of lost goodbyes, of old pain and empty promises, and the need to run.

 

 

 

Maine and CT sat under the big oak tree and stared at the house.

“I hope this works,” she said.

Maine didn’t respond.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she went on, “this is probably the most interesting thing that’s ever happened in this town.  I’d love to write an article about it, find out what’s actually going on here.  But I wish it wasn’t my friends who were involved.  I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”

She leaned against the trunk of the tree and shook her head.

“Fuck,” she muttered.  “Poor Wash.  I can’t believe they kicked us out of his room and shipped him off like that.  I didn’t even get the chance to….”

She sighed and went silent.

“There’s something pretty fucked up going on here, Maine,” she said eventually.  “I called Florida to ask about visiting and he said half the ward is locked down, nobody but staff allowed in for the foreseeable future.  The policies at Dymphna’s are pretty strict about visitors who aren’t family but… this is something else.”

She growled quietly and hit the tree with her fist.

“The Director knows something about this,” she said.  “I’m sure of it.  Maybe Carolina, too.  I don’t… I can’t figure out why she would lie to us, I thought at first it might be a typo, but the _records_ … I keep finding it, here and there, like it slipped through the cracks and…  I just…  How could she not know?”

Silence fell.

She looked at him.

“Hey,” she said, placing a hand softly on his arm.  “Maine, none of this is your fault, you know that, right?  Even what happened with Wyoming and York.  If you were involved you didn’t know what you were doing.  We all believed you when you said you didn’t remember.  Wash believed you too, and he wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.  We didn’t know how bad it was for Wash.  If we had…” she trailed off and turned away.

Her shoulders sank.

“I’m the one who gave him that fucking knife,” she said thickly.

She shuddered next to him and he made no move to comfort her.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” she said vehemently.  “For Wash.  For York, even for Wyoming.  I’m going to find every dirty secret this place has buried.  I promise.”

She looked at the house again and fell silent.

Maine said nothing.  He stared at his hands, at the barely healed cuts that slashed across them.  The sunlight shone down on them through the leaves on the trees, dappled and flickering.

It reminded him of candlelight.

 

*

 

When Price finally left the house and declared his work done four more hours had passed.  North had finally opened his book, and York had pulled an article he’d been assigned to read before his injury out of his pocket, inviting Carolina to join him.  Eventually he convinced her to sit with him in the bed of the truck, stretched out on an old blanket she kept in the cab for emergencies, looking up at the branches of the huge oak tree and tracing the way the yellowing leaves fanned across the sky as the two of them shared space and heat.  He almost wished the Counselor would turn around and go back inside, suspicions be damned, because it was the most comfortable he’d been since he’d come back from the hospital.  Even better, he could feel Carolina beside him, the tension in her body slowly easing as they waited. It felt like too long since they had simply enjoyed each other’s company, and York reveled in that tiny moment of comfort.  Lying next to the woman he loved in the quiet of the late afternoon he could almost convince himself that nothing was wrong.

It was so easy to say that everything would be okay. 

They could hear the front door of the house shut, footsteps crunching across the gravel, and the truck shifted minutely underneath them as North straightened and took his weight off the body of the vehicle.

“You’re finished?” he asked.

Carolina nudged York, and reluctantly they began climbing out of the truck.

“I’ve completed my task,” the Counselor said, his eyes almost gleaming in the light of the sinking sun.  “You are free to return to the house without worry.”

York eyed him, still half sitting on the edge of the truck, and shifted to look at the house.

Whatever sense of peace he’d had, the house thoroughly ruined the illusion.  It still stood tall, dark and imposing against the depth of the sky and the silence of the forest, the attic window a half shuttered eye that looked down on them like a contemptuous dare.  York’s previous optimism, his determination to have some faith, felt pinned under the weight of the spiked iron cresting on the roof, hollow like the stare of empty windows.  As the sun sank lower through the trees the light hit the western walls of the house, painting it a subtle red that looked like a stain.

It had never seemed so alive.

“Excellent,” said Carolina, and York turned to her incredulously, but if she could ignore the ominous atmosphere she could brush his gaze off just as easily. “Thank you,” she added to Price.

“Of course,” the Counselor said, a bland smile curling across his face.  “I would like to do a follow up inspection,” he continued, “about a week from now, perhaps.”

“What?” York asked sharply, finally jumping down from the truck just as CT and Maine walked up behind them to join the conversation.  “Why?  I thought you said you were done?”

“Just a precaution,” Price assured them.  “These things are not always as clear cut as they might seem.  It would just be a courtesy call to make sure that everything remains well in the house and nothing… unexpected has happened.  In the interest of safety, you understand.”

“Alright,” Carolina said, too quickly in York’s opinion, but he bit his tongue and held back from saying anything.  He had promised to be supportive, he reminded himself, he had said he had faith in her decisions and he _did_ , he was just having trouble letting go of his misgivings.  The house was old and creepy looking, he had always thought that, and getting rid of the ghosts wasn’t going to give it a miraculous makeover and a new paint job.  He had been jumpy since his injury.  It was just his imagination working overtime. 

He glanced at the house again and wondered how many times he had thought that in the weeks they’d been living there.  He wondered how many times Wash had told himself the very same thing.

“We’ll see you next week, then,” Carolina was saying, holding out her hand.

Price was forced to drop his bag in order to accept the handshake, and York strained his ears as it fell to the ground but he didn’t hear anything.  The Counselor released her hand and stooped to retrieve his duffle bag, and York tried to convince himself that it didn’t look lighter than before.

“It’s been a pleasure, Miss Church,” Price said softly, his eyes glinting with something that looked a little too knowing, a little too intimate.  “I look forward to seeing you again.”

York scowled at him, and Carolina nodded stiffly.

“Next week,” she repeated, and together they all watched him get into his car and drive away, the sound of tires skidding on the gravel loud in the late afternoon.

“Do you think he does it on purpose?” North said finally, breaking the oddly tense silence.

CT snorted.

“Of course he does,” she said a little derisively.  “His job is convincing people he can talk to ghosts, it’s got to be at least seventy-five percent performance.”

Carolina laughed a little, her shoulders visibly relaxing.

“Exactly,” she said.  “It’s a performance.  He dials up the mystery because it sells his work.  But at least he’s done his job.  Come on, let’s go back inside.  We should all get some food and rest.  CT, you should stay for dinner.”

CT smiled, and as preoccupied as he was, York barely noticed how strangely tight the expression looked.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said, and where usually it would be rueful it just sounded stilted.  “I’d love to do the new and improved tour, but I didn’t think this would take so long.  South’s expecting me back about…” she checked her watch and grimaced.  “About an hour ago.  Really I only stayed to keep Maine company.”

Maine said nothing.

Carolina hesitated for a moment, glancing between the two of them, and then she nodded and turned away.

“South’s still being stubborn about this, isn’t she?” North asked with a sigh.  Carolina gave him a pat on the shoulder as she walked past, heading back towards the house, her step unfaltering and determined even as the shadow of the house stretched in the afternoon sun, slanting towards her and nearly swallowing her in darkness.  She walked on, unaffected and unafraid, and York wished he had even an ounce of her certainty. 

 “Sorry,” CT said to North, her tone becoming a little more genuine.  “I’ll talk to her again.  Maybe she’ll be a little less bullheaded now that this is all… over with…”

CT trailed off, her voice dying on the end of the sentence, and when York ripped his gaze from the closing front door he found that she wasn’t looking at them like he expected her to be, lost in thought.  She was staring at something in the upper eaves of the house, her dark eyes narrow and searching.

“CT?” North prompted.

She blinked and almost jumped, her gaze skipping back down to them.

“Sorry,” she said quickly.  “Did you…?  I thought…”

For a moment it looked like she was going to say something, her brow furrowed and her mouth pursed around a word, but then she glanced again at the roof of the house, towards the steep shingles and the broken attic window, and she shook her head.

“Never mind,” she said with a small, almost broken sounding laugh.  “Fuck, I really need to get some sleep.  I have to get going.  I’m going to call Florida again, see if he can find out when we might be able to visit Wash.”

“Let us know what he says,” North said with a small, forced smile.  “And will you do me a favor and make sure South eats something that isn’t deep fried or bleeding?”

“But those are her favorite food groups,” CT replied a bit impishly.

“I’m aware,” North said with a long suffering sigh.

CT laughed again, this time with far more warmth.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “You know I’ll look out for her until she comes around.”

“Thanks.”

“Speaking of which,” she said, jerking he thumb at her car and then stepping back with a wave.  She turned around to leave and then paused, glancing at them and the house behind them, at Maine, who was standing silently off to the side, at the door where Carolina had vanished, and up again at the sharp line of the roof.  Her gaze seemed to move like a nervous bird, lighting on one thing only to take off again a moment later, until finally it settled, uneasily, on the group of them standing there on the lawn, still waiting for her to say goodbye. 

“I’ll call you guys tomorrow, okay?” was all she said.

“Have a good night, CT,” North replied.

She nodded, tossed them one more worried smile, and made her way back to her car.

When she was gone the two of them turned back to look at the house, but neither made a move.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” said North, and he sounded tired. 

“Yeah,” York muttered.

“Let’s get back inside,” North suggested, finally starting forward.  “Carolina would probably like some help with dinner, and we could all do with some food.”

York nodded, beginning to follow, and then glanced to the side to where Maine still stood, hunched and quiet like a gargoyle.

“You coming, Maine?” he asked, trying to force some cheer into his voice.  “If we all gang up on her we might be able to get Carolina to make barbeque again.”

Maine didn’t answer, didn’t even really look at him, he just trudged past him without a word, disappearing behind North through the doors of the house.

York sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

He tried to ignore the way the house seemed taller, tried to remind himself that it was just his imagination as he walked up the steps.  Even so, he found himself stalled in front of the big double doors, his hand on the knob, standing still on the painted planks of the porch.  It was blue, he noticed blankly, as if seeing it for the first time, faded and chipping but like everything else about the house somehow captivating.  Like stepping into water, wading into another world.  He shook his head sharply, not even wincing at the slight pain the movement caused in his head, in the space where his left eye should be.  He was being paranoid.  He was being melodramatic.  The house was safe now.

It was clean.

York stepped across the false river and pushed through the door, into the house, and although the sound it made as it swung shut behind him was quiet, only a faint click as the latch caught and held, he couldn’t help but think that something about it sounded final.


	5. The Haunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost at the end! (Of this part of the story, anyway...)
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Major Character Death, violence, stabbing, broken bones, blood and gore, self-harm, canon-typical language.
> 
> This is the last full length chapter, and all we have left is the epilogue! Because the epilogue is not even half the length of a regular chapter it seems kind of silly to make you guys wait the usual two weeks (even if it does line up better with Halloween that way…) so the epilogue will be posted next Friday, on October 21st.

 

 

York could beg all he wanted, but Carolina couldn’t conjure ingredients out of thin air, and after the tumultuous events of the previous week grocery shopping seemed to have fallen by the wayside.  No one really wanted to spend the last few hours of their weekend driving to town and back, all of them far too tired for the trip, so they had to make due with scrounging through the fridge and cabinets for dinner.  Eventually they unearthed just enough for a simple meal, and Carolina found herself shooed out of her own kitchen and back behind the breakfast bar while North stood over a pot of salted water and a saucepan, trying his best to make a plain jar of spaghetti sauce palatable.  York joined her before long, and Maine sat at the table while they all waited for the water to boil.

She wished there was more that she could do.  It would be nice to have something to occupy her hands after what felt like an entire day of sitting on them.

At least they could be sure their time hadn’t been wasted.  The change in the house had been obvious as soon as she came back inside, so drastic that it had felt as though she’d somehow walked into the wrong building.  When she was a girl the foyer had always felt hollow to her, a cool empty space where echoes danced overhead in counterpoint to the footsteps below.  Long ago those echoes had meant companionship, a little girl sitting on the upper stairs listening intently for signs of a friendship she had pulled out of the air.  The high vaulted ceiling had always been so far away, and in the last few days the house itself had almost seemed to expand, the walls stretched taut to contain the cold terrors that haunted them.

Now that feeling was gone.  The house was filled with the fire of sunset, blazing streams of orange and gold that seeped through the windows of the west wing and onward across the parquet floor.  The cold was gone, and every corner seemed closer, no longer an unreachable mystery.

It was almost claustrophobic.

Carolina leaned her elbows against the breakfast bar, the edge of it digging into her skin, and tried not to intervene as North fumbled through the spice rack.

The air in the kitchen and dining room was subdued while they waited, quiet and heavy after a long day of nothing.  Carolina didn’t want it to bother her, but it was hard to ignore when there was little else to focus on.  As the water boiled and steam rose from the pot the air became thick and warm with it, and while it should have felt welcoming, the beginnings of a hot meal on a cool fall day with the promise of good company, it only seemed to make the room more stifling.

North put the dry pasta into the pot, the noodles falling in a spiraling cascade to rest against the edge, not quite submerged, and she watched as they slowly softened and bent, sinking below the surface and out of sight.

He stirred the noodles, threw a pinch of basil into the simmering tomato sauce, and sighed.

“I guess grocery shopping should be on the To Do list for tomorrow,” he said wryly, and Carolina felt some of the tension break with the silence.

“Well it might be nice to eat in the future, so… yeah,” said York with a smirk, but he couldn’t mask the relief in his voice.  “I would volunteer, but it has been _heavily suggested_ ,” he made a face, “that I avoid driving for a while, so one of you is going to have to take care of it after class.”

“Oh, is that why?” Carolina asked, trying to put some levity into it.  “Don’t pretend you don’t like the idea of us running errands for you while you laze around and watch TV.”

“A little vacation never hurt anyone,” he countered without much heat.

The last few days had been hell, sleepless and bloody, and every terrible event seemed surrounded with hours of uncertainty, each second pulled into something infinite and suffocating, stretched, strained and waiting to snap.  But it was over now, Carolina thought, ignoring the still prickling tips of her fingers and the oppressive heat of a room that only two days before had been filled with unrelenting, unnatural cold.  That was why she felt so dull, so worn.  It was the wake of adrenaline, days of anxiety and jitters crashing down on her when she was finally allowed to breathe.

They were exhausted, all of them, physically and emotionally.  It was no wonder that they all seemed dead to the world.

“I think a little vacation might be exactly what we all need,” North spoke up.  He gave the sauce another stir and then rested the spoon idly on the counter, tomato sauce pooling under it.  “It might help us relax a little to get away for a while.”

“Who has the time?” Carolina sighed, thinking of the mountains of work that had been piling up while they focused on simply keeping each other alive.

“I do,” York complained.  “I have nothing _but_ time for the next two weeks.”

“At this point I don’t think anyone would say no if we wanted to take a few days off for our mental health,” North said.  “And fall break starts at the end of this week, anyway.  We should take advantage of it.”

That was right.  Carolina nearly laughed at how completely time had gotten away from her.  It was the thirtieth of September.  The five day break that was their first vacation of the term would start on Thursday.

“What are you suggesting?” she asked.

“Take a trip,” he said simply, turning around to face them.  “Unwind.  Leave the house for a bit, maybe go sightseeing or drive to the beach.”

“Over five hours cooped up in a car with you guys so we can stare at the ocean and complain that it’s too cold to swim?” York said.  “I thought the idea was to relax.”

“October’s not really prime beach season,” Carolina agreed, thinking.  “But there is a national park only a couple of hours away.”

“The Smokies,” York mused.  “There’s an idea.  Isn’t there a casino there?”

“Not _in_ the park,” Carolina corrected, “but yes.  Although I’m not sure that losing all your money is a great way to relax, either, York.”

“Aw, come on, you don’t know I’d lose.  I’m not bad at cards, maybe I’d win big!”

“And that attitude is exactly why you’d lose,” Carolina said, a real smile drifting over her face.  York saw the expression and flashed a grin back at her, and for a moment she could ignore the way the room felt too warm, she could suppress the urge to scan the walls for shadows that shouldn’t be there and the strange aching emptiness she felt when they weren’t.  There was change in the air, hanging thick like the steam in the kitchen, and seeing York smile at her like that she could make herself believe it was for the better.

“Camping sounds like fun,” York said to her.  “Just the two of us, sleeping under the stars…”

“The six of us,” Carolina corrected, “after we invite South and CT.”

“That sounds like less fun,” he muttered, but he laughed when she bumped her shoulder against his with a soft glare.

“I think any change of scenery would be good for us,” North agreed, taking the pot off the stove and dumping the noodles into the colander.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Carolina said thoughtfully.  “Some fresh air would be nice.  What do you think, Maine?”

There was no answer, and Carolina turned in her seat to look behind her.  Maine had always been quiet, and their group of friends had long ago learned that a lack of input from him didn’t mean that he wasn’t listening.  Still, that was no reason to leave him out.  Carolina tried to include him in their conversations, but really the person who had been the best at it was Wash.  It was no surprise, then, that for the last couple of days Maine had barely said a word, and even his usual grunts of acknowledgement seemed few and far between. 

In the heavy heat of the room he was sitting motionless, staring blankly at the table in front of him.

“Maine?” she prompted.

He seemed to startle, coming back from whatever faraway place his thoughts had taken him with a stuttered jolt.  He slumped a little in his seat, looking up at her with a faint trace of confusion, and made an inquisitive sound that wasn’t quite a word.  Carolina gave him her best attempt at a comforting smile, but it felt tired and strained.

“North thinks we should get out of the house for a while,” she said.  “Get our heads back on straight.”

Maine blinked at her and then turned to look at North, who shrugged.

“It might sound a little odd, but ghosts or no ghosts this place still has some bad memories attached to it now.  Forgetting might not be what we need, but it wouldn’t hurt to get away from them, dull their influence a little,” he said.  He dumped the drained noodles back into the pot and poured the bland looking sauce over the top of it.  “Soup’s on.”

Dinner was a lackluster affair, the food tasteless and the conversation weary.  The temperature in the room stayed overbearingly warm, but after days of the creeping chill Carolina took it as a good sign.  It meant that the house had become normal, an old building with ventilation problems, drafts in some places and stuffiness in others but nothing to worry about.  She shifted in her chair and glanced at the French doors in the dining room, considering opening them to the cool night air, but staying in her seat, too tired to act.

North was right, she thought.  If they left for a little while they could all rest and relax.  It wasn’t running away.  There was nothing to run from.

The meal stretched on, the four of them staying seated long after the food was all gone.  North and York continued to discuss their vacation plans, both of them already invested in the idea, and Maine listened in intently, the golden fingers of late afternoon stretching towards them across the foyer as they talked.  The sun set on their conversation, stars winking into view over the kitchen garden, and twilight passed without a sound or a signal.  Carolina watched the darkness fall outside like a soft drift of snow, settling slow and silent until the edge of the forest was lost in the oncoming night.

“We should get to bed,” she said eventually into a lull in the debate over the romance in sleeping exposed under the stars versus proper camping equipment and staving off the inquisitiveness of forest animals and insects, not to mention the rain.  “I know it’s still early but we’ve had a rough weekend and we should all get some sleep.”

York snorted.

“Rough is one way of putting it,” he said.  “If I don’t get some shuteye I might turn into an actual zombie, and I think we’ve had enough horror movie clichés for a lifetime.”  He paused.  “But just in case, if I wake up tomorrow moaning for brains you know what to do.”

Carolina rolled her eyes but didn’t hold back a slight smile.

“Hyperbole aside,” she said, “tomorrow we can ask our professors about a few days off.  North’s right, we need the time and I don’t think they’ll say no after everything that’s happened.  We can all afford to miss a few days of school.”

York’s expression dropped instantly.

“Shit,” he muttered.  “School’s going to be a nightmare.  We’ll have to explain…  Campus is going to be drowning in rumors.”

“Let them talk,” North said wearily.  “It’s not our responsibility to inform them and we’ll never stop the gossip anyway.  CT said she was going to call tomorrow, I’ll talk to her then, invite her and South to come with us.  Then we can all get out of here.”

“If she’s meeting us here tell her to bring another hammer,” York said.  “Maybe we can finally pry open the goddamned attic, satisfy some curiosity before we go.”

Maine shifted in his seat with a discontented mutter.

“Don’t be difficult, Maine, you’re coming too” Carolina said, turning to the football player.  “We’re not going to all go off on vacation and leave you here in an empty house.”

“I’ll talk to your professors if that’s what you’re worried about,” North volunteered.  “We’ll work it out.”

With that, everything was settled and they began to drift away.  Maine and North both disappeared upstairs without much comment beyond a quiet goodnight, and York wandered off while Carolina put the dishes in the sink, making a mental note to make sure they were washed before they left on their little trip.

Behind her she heard the French doors open, the night breeze slipping in like a cool, quiet sigh, and then York was sidling up to her by the sink, his hands behind his back.

“So we’re headed to the Great Smoky Mountains, huh?” he said, a little too slyly.

“Looks like it,” she replied, running the water so the dishes could soak overnight.

“Well, speaking of great and smokin’,” he started, “someone should call the fire department, because you—”

“York, if that sentence ends the way I think it does then you’re going to be down another eye,” she said reflexively.  She immediately felt a little guilty about it, but it faded when she saw the way he was grinning at her.

“Come on, Carolina,” he said.  “You never let me have any fun.”

She smirked.

“Goodnight, York,” she said, turning away.  She only made it halfway through the dining room before he caught up to her, grabbing her hand.

She looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, but he didn’t drop her hand, instead his fingers tightening around hers.  She couldn’t quite place his expression, the patch and vivid scars changing the landscape of a face she had once known so well.  He looked tired, and hopeful, and strangely hesitant, like he wanted to say something but didn’t quite know how.

In the end, he settled for simply showing her what he’d been hiding behind his back: a small bouquet of tiny flowers.

Carolina looked at him in surprise, and reached out with her free hand.

The blossoms were delicate things, five petals fanned out like a little star and tinted the very lightest sky blue.  At the center of each was a circle of yellow surrounded by another, sharper star in white.  They were so small that one of them could rest on her fingertip with room to spare.  They would probably be beautiful if they weren’t wilting.  Unfortunately, that was the way seasons worked, she mused, taking the fragile bundle from him.  It was amazing they had held on this long after the weather had turned chilly.

“What are these, periwinkles?” she asked.

“Nah,” said York.  “Forget-me-nots.”

She gave him another raised eyebrow, and he smiled back cheekily.

“They’re a symbol of true love,” he said.

“And you know that because…?”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that the ladies really appreciate a guy with a sensitive side.”

Carolina snorted a laugh.

“Alright, Mr. Sensitive,” she said.  “Where did you get them?  I’m pretty sure you haven’t snuck off to town without me in the last few days.”

York shrugged, his gaze drifting to the open French doors.

“There’s a bunch of them growing in the kitchen garden,” he replied.  “They don’t look like they were planted there, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I picked them.  I figured they were wildflowers.”

“Probably,” she murmured, looking at the little blossoms, at the browning curl that travelled the petals’ edges, crawling inward, and at the long stems, brittle in her hands.

She set the flowers gently on the nearby table, and ignored the tingle they left on her fingers.

“Did you need something, York?” she asked softly.

He hesitated, but after a moment he glanced over his shoulder and then flashed her a smile, jerking his head back towards the foyer, towards his own room.

“Come with me,” he said.  “After everything that’s happened, tonight’s not a night I want to spend alone.”

In the wake of sunset the heavy warmth had finally dissipated, the cool air both a relief and a promise of a chilly night.  With the doors to the garden open the warmth almost seemed to be draining from the room, but there was heat in his expression, and vulnerability, a need for human company that she couldn’t deny.

With a quiet huff she disentangled their fingers, moving away just long enough to shut the doors and switch off the kitchen lights before tugging him back in for a kiss.

“Don’t tell me you’re still scared of the dark,” she teased when they parted.  He laughed a little, pulling her along behind him as he stepped into the light of the foyer, moving backwards across the echoing space.

“I’m not,” he said, reaching for the light switch.  The sunny yellow radiance of the chandelier flickered out, plunging them into the dim glow of starlight, and he held her close as they walked on.  “Not if you’re with me.”

She rolled her eyes, and she knew he couldn’t see her smiling in the darkness.

“Cheesy,” she commented, and he laughed again.

“Romantic,” he corrected.  “And true.”

He kissed her again, leaving her breathless, and for the first time in hours she felt something besides exhaustion.

“Well then,” she managed as they stumbled through his bedroom door, barely even thinking before she kicked it shut and dragged him to her, murmuring against his lips.  “I guess I’ll have to stay the night.”

 

*

 

Maine lay prone on his bed in the quiet night and tried not to think.

Every inch of him ached.  His body complained of the tension running through it, the only thing that had been keeping him upright for the past day, his mind lost in a fog of exhaustion and regret.  His head pounded in time with his heart, both hurting more than he could describe for reasons he didn’t want to think about.

 _The wounds were self-inflicted_ , he thought again.  Again and again, it ran through his mind.  He had heard what the doctors said, he had been there when the Director barred them from the room.

 _Attempted suicide_ , was the whisper, the curse and the absolution.  _You didn’t do this.  It isn’t your fault_.

He hadn’t touched the blade, even if he couldn’t remember falling asleep before the shock of cold had brought him back from nothingness.  There were no new cuts on his hands, no scratches or bruises, nothing that would suggest a fight.  He hadn’t done anything to hurt his friend.  He hadn’t even given him the knife.

He hadn’t done anything, but he remembered the way he looked that night before they all went to bed, lost and unsure.  He remembered being too tired to care.  He remembered walking away.

He hadn’t done anything.

_The wounds were self-inflicted._

Wash had been so unbearably light in his arms when he carried him down the stairs.

Maine shuddered, and every muscle seemed to scream.

The room was too warm, stifling and airless, like sitting too close to a fire and feeling it lick at his skin.  The heat pressed against him, a heavy blanket weighing him down, making him sluggish even as he fought to stay awake.  There was light on the ceiling, had he left the light on?  He must have, because it spread across the room like warm honey, slow, golden and lazy.  He felt his eyes droop and his body begin to drift, and with some effort he lifted his arm and slammed it back against the headboard behind him, barely strong enough to make a muffled thump.  Pain spiked through his hand, fanning outward like lightening, there and gone in a flash, but it wasn’t enough, he could feel himself sinking. 

It had been hours.

He had lain there, awake, alone, and with every minute that passed it became harder to remember why.

 _It wasn’t your fault_ , he told himself again, and he thought of scratches on his hands, plastic and glass cutting deep, and the feel of towels soaked through with blood as he added another layer, trying desperately not to lose it in the back of the moving car.

 _“I have to get out,”_ Wash had said, over and over, weaker and weaker, and now he was gone, locked away in his own mind, locked away in the asylum.  Now he might never come back.

 _It wasn’t your fault,_ he thought.  _The wounds were self-inflicted.  He did it to himself._

Maine could feel the lazy heat move through him like questing fingers, and every nerve they touched blazed.

He did it to himself.

 _He tried to leave,_ Maine thought, the realization seeping in.  _He tried to run._

There were some things you couldn’t run from.

He clenched his fists, his breathing hard, and growled into the heat that pushed him down.

The others were trying to run, too, he remembered vaguely.  They wanted to get out.  What would happen, if they did?

Carolina said the house was safe.  The Counselor said the ghosts were gone.  There was nothing to fear in the dark or the shadows.  There was no reason left to keep fighting.

He could feel himself fading.  He was so tired; his head hurt with every beat of his heart, and the warmth of the room was soporific, soothing and welcoming.

 _That’s right.  It’s okay now,_ he told himself, as his headache finally began to fade to a dim pulse and his fingers tingled and went numb, and there was something strange about the thought, something he needed to remember, something off in the cadence of the voice in his head, but his mind was in a fog and he was just so tired. 

_There’s nothing to be afraid of.  It’s okay to let go.  It’s okay to give in._

The words were a balm on his nerves and his conscience, soft and sure.

_It’s okay to lose yourself._

Maine drowned in whispers of honey and syrup, sticky, sweet, and warm, and fire consumed him.

He blinked.

Sitting up he flexed his fingers, looked at his hands as the tendons moved, and he smiled.

Feet hit the floor, padding with unfamiliar delicacy to the door of his room.  He opened it silently, fingers lingering on the door frame as he stepped out and into the hall.  The stairs were a dark void in the gaping space at the center of the house, but his stride was sure.  He made his way down, step by step, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs he crossed the foyer to stand in front of the closed front doors.

For a long moment he simply stood there, his hand on the doorknob, as the air grew heavy around him.  The darkness seemed to thicken, gathering in the center of the house and concentrating, watching as he paused, anticipation choking the room like a breath held too long and aching for release.

He opened the door.

Outside the air was cool and brisk, the autumn night a crisp bite and a fresh chill.  Before him, just past the painted porch spread the courtyard, the driveway, the forest, and the mountains beyond.  The world waited, hushed and beautiful and almost close enough to reach out and touch, to cradle in his hands.

He didn’t move.

In the quiet night his gaze fell to the wood of the porch.  The paint was faded, just beginning to peel, but it was still so blue, light blue, like the sky above, like the rivers and streams, the blood of the living world.  It flowed from the door like a waterfall, a cascade of wood and splinters, rapids of cracked paint too treacherous to cross.

Not yet. 

He closed the door again, and behind him the darkness seized and roiled, a pulsing rhythm with the cadence of laughter, low and mocking, a vibration just below the edge of hearing that rumbled through his sternum.

It didn’t matter.

He turned back to the house, to the darkness and the shadows.  To those who slept within.  They would leave in the morning.  They would move past the reach of the house, its echoes and its memories, its pull and its prison.  They would leave in the morning, and they would take Maine with them.

They would leave in the morning, and they would leave him behind.

He looked to the upstairs balcony, to one shut door in the eastern hall, and the door beyond that could never be unlocked.

He narrowed his eyes.

After another brief consideration he turned again, making his way across the foyer, through the dining room, and as he walked the temperature dropped, ice beginning to claw its way up the windows and the walls.

He didn’t stop.

It didn’t matter.

He moved around the breakfast bar, into the kitchen and up to the counter.  In the back corner was the knife block.  He reached, his fingers dancing over the handle of the chef’s knife before moving on, pulling instead at the boning knife, rarely used and significantly sharper.  Six inches of steel slid free without a sound, and he looked at it for a moment, resting comfortably in his hand, the blade thin and wickedly pointed.

He smiled.

He walked back, through the kitchen, through the dining room, past the crystalizing flowers laid so gently on the table, ice dragging itself across the floor in desperate frosty fingers as the air tried to freeze around him, but he paid it no mind.  It wouldn’t stop him.

They couldn’t stop him.

He paused only once more, again in front of the large double doors in the foyer.  For an unnaturally still moment he stared at it, the solid wood, the frosted glass, and the painted porch, the only barrier between them all and the outside world.

He stepped forward and locked the door.

He turned, and ice melted beneath his feet as though his body brimmed with fire.

 

 

 

It was cold.

North shivered and blinked awake, jolting like he’d been shocked.  The air was cold, freezing, ice frosting over the windows and clouding the French door to the balcony, fractal patterns stretching like skeletal hands over the glass.  His breath fogged in the air, and fuzzily he half expected it to take shape, an ethereal, intangible creature moving with its own unfathomable purpose, like the memories that had haunted their home, trailing cold like the onset of winter, the footsteps of night.

Like the spirits that were supposed to be gone.

He threw back the blankets and lurched out of bed, stumbling to the mirror.  Ice had formed there, too, and with his bare hand he brushed it away, holding his breath until the glass was clear and he could see what looked back at him.  After a moment of scrambling he stepped back, his eyes flickering to the corner, where he’d become accustomed to looking when he talked to his little friend.

His breath caught.

Somehow, the first thing he felt, seeing that pale face watching him in the mirror, half-hidden as always, was relief.

Then the fear rushed in.

“Oh no,” he murmured, blood draining from his face and goose bumps erupting over his skin in a prickling shudder.  The last time the house had been so cold they had found Wash half dead, still trying to carve open his own veins.  It had been in Carolina’s room, too, when she lay trapped in nightmares.  The cold had never come without disaster following, it was a warning, a siren.

The house wasn’t safe.

North turned and rushed for the door.

_BANG._

He stumbled to a halt, only halfway across the room when he was stopped by a loud crash behind him, and he whirled around to look for the source.  A book lay on the floor by the wall, the same one that had been resting on his nightstand by his bed.  It was splayed open and flat, pages bent messily underneath it, as if it had landed askew after being hurled with great force.

Carefully, his heart pounding, North turned his eyes back to the mirror.

He was there, the little boy, standing behind him in his reflection, for the first time wholly visible, open and exposed.  His arms were stretched out to his sides like a barrier, his expression desperate and terrified, and he stood, immobile, between North and the door.

North swallowed, his teeth beginning to chatter as the temperature fell further, and he shook his head.

“I have to go,” he said, his voice hoarse in the biting cold.  “I have to help them.  York and Carolina, and Maine.  Something bad is happening, isn’t it?  I can’t just stay here.  Not after what happened to Wash.  I can’t just let them get hurt.”

He took another shuddering breath, the cold like knives in his lungs, and then, for the first time, his raised his head to meet the child’s eyes.

They were green.

Brilliant emerald, shining and expressive, the little boy’s eyes were the brightest thing about him and North didn’t know how he could ever have been confused about their color.  His eyes were sad and afraid, desperate and lonely, and they were a vivid, striking green, the exact same shade as Carolina’s.

He didn’t have time to consider what that meant.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” he murmured with an apologetic smile, “but I have to try.”

He turned, and there was nothing behind him.

Taking another icy breath, North opened the door and stepped into the hall.  Outside of his room it was bitterly cold and oppressively dark.  To his right ran the balcony railing, the stairwell and foyer opening beneath like a bottomless pit.  The darkness in that hollow space was almost tangible, a moving thing that seethed and writhed in a hungry abyss, and he skirted away from the edge and back towards the wall.  He ripped his eyes away from it, and moved forward.

In the strange consuming darkness he could see a figure near the head of the stairs, his white night clothes a beacon in the sea of blackness.

“Maine,” he said in relief, rushing toward him.  “Are you alright?”

Maine didn’t answer, but that was hardly unusual.

North couldn’t see any injuries.  Taking his eyes off of his friend and turning to look down the stairwell, he tried to see into the murky depths of the foyer.  There should be light coming through the huge windows over the door, starlight or moonlight, any light at all, but everything seemed shrouded, like the house had removed itself from reality somehow, created a separate space of horrors.  He didn’t know what was happening, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was already too late to run.

Still, they had to try.

“We need to check on York and Carolina,” he said, scanning what he could see of the first floor but finding nothing.  “Something’s wrong,” he continued, starting for the stairs, “we need to get out of here.”

Abruptly, Maine turned, stepping into his path, and his left hand landed on North’s shoulder, his grip hard and heavy.

“Maine, what—” North started, but anything further was lost when he finally saw Maine’s face, nearly choking on his own words at the sight.

It was like looking at a mannequin, a wax dummy molded to look like someone he knew but failing to reach even basic humanity.  His mouth was curled up at the corners, but it was stiff and fixed, a rictus of teeth and gums that held no warmth, and the muscles in his face seemed to twitch and jolt sporadically.  But the worst part, by far, was his eyes.  His eyes were hollow, empty, and yet somehow even in that strange, emotionless face, they burned.

His skin crawled and his breath stuttered as a shudder tore through him and he tried to step back, to move away, but Maine’s hand on his shoulder was like stone, an immovable grip, inhumanly strong.  There was no escaping it, and as soon as he tried the hulking figure of his friend simply pulled him back in, stepped forward, too close, as though he were going to whisper a secret into his ear.

“St—”

Pain lanced through him, screaming, excruciating, and he lost his breath at the intensity of it.

“Maine…?” was all he managed, barely a whisper.

“No,” the monster answered, low and smooth, and pulled the knife from his gut.

North clutched at the wound automatically, blood rushing in his ears and over his fingers as shock took over.

No, was all he thought as the thing that wasn’t Maine drew back for another blow, the long, thin knife dark to the hilt with blood.  _No._

He raised his arm on instinct, somehow deflecting the blow, and through the pain, through the freezing cold, something reached inside him with icy fingers and screamed at him to _run_ , _run, RUN._

Maine pulled back again with an angry grunt, but North was already moving, ducking around and under his raised arm.  The brute’s hand snagged at his shoulder, and North lashed out, connected, his elbow smashing into the other man’s throat.  Maine let go with a gargled hiss of pain, the sound animal and almost alien.  North lurched for the stairs, only a few feet away, but Maine was fast, too fast, and his legs didn’t want to cooperate, every step another spike of agony, and just as he hit the top step he felt another stabbing shock at his back, a searing pain in his shoulder that drove him down with a cry.

He fell.

The stairs seemed endless as he tumbled down them into darkness, hitting the bannister at awkward angles, rolling and sliding, each uncontrollable, agonizing summersault driving the knife further into his shoulder until he landed at the bottom with a deafening _snap._

 

 

 

It was the sound that woke them, the two of them jolting apart and sitting upright, hearts racing as they wondered if what they heard was reality or nightmare, an echoing crash that just didn’t seem real.  Immediately York began to shiver, the loss of his partner’s body heat keenly felt as she climbed out of his bed and stood, tense and listening.  There was ice on the walls and the floor, ice on the windows, and he realized with a sinking dread that the room was lit with a dim green glow.

“F-fuck,” he said, teeth chattering.  “Carolina, did you hear…?”

“A crash,” she replied, and she quickly reached for her jeans, dressing in no time.  She made for the door as he scrambled out of bed after her, but when she reached it, the knob stuck fast.

“What?” she said, wrenching at it unsuccessfully.  “York, did you lock the door?”

“You know I didn’t,” he answered, awkwardly pulling on his own pants and trying to ignore the slick bite of ice against his bare feet as he watched the empty corners of the room behind them.  “It… it doesn’t lock anymore, really, the thing got fucked up after I, uh, practiced on it a few too many times.”

Carolina tugged at the door again, harder, and when it refused to budge she slammed her fist against it instead.

“No _,_ ” she growled.  “God damn it, _let us out or so help me—_ ”

She rattled the doorknob, pulling and yanking, over and over, the strain making her visibly shake, but it was useless.  Anxiety crawled under York’s skin, the helpless knowledge that they were trapped curdling in his stomach, and he wondered why, when the whole house burned with cold and terror, they would be locked inside this one, quiet room.  He glanced back again, scanned the room for something that was never there, Carolina struggling beside him, and all the while the air stayed still and cold and the green light never wavered.

York inhaled sharply, and he grabbed her wrist.

“Carolina, wait,” he whispered.  “I think…”

“ _What_.”

He caught her gaze and after moment her expression softened just a little and under the hard determination and anger he could see the way the fear in the house had caught her, too, like tiny hooks in the skin that pulled in every direction.  She was unraveling, her conviction proved fruitless as their last resort had clearly failed.  The only thing left was to focus on getting out alive, but pure force couldn’t help them against an enemy they couldn’t touch, and York wasn’t sure they were fighting an enemy at all.

Keeping their eyes locked, he pulled her gently back from the door.

“Follow my lead,” he murmured, and then turned to address the room.

“Let us out,” he said, as evenly as he could while his teeth chattered in the cold.  Carolina was a line of fire against his side and he tried to use her presence to steady himself.  “I… I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, exactly—”

“ _York_ ,” Carolina groaned, and he took only a second to offer her a weak, sheepish smile.

“…but you’ve never been anything but helpful,” he went on.  “Even when I didn’t want your help.  And I think… that you’re trying to help us now.  But…”

The green glow remained steady, reached into every corner of the room in a way that no lamplight ever could.  Ice continued to crystalize, moving fast over every surface in a thin, cracked layer, and as it spread it caught the light, reflecting back with a gleam that looked like eyes.

York could feel its gaze, intense scrutiny that was all too familiar.  It was waiting for an argument, he realized, and he had one chance to make their case.  It had always been frustratingly logical that way, interested in his reading and his homework, disapproving when he only wanted to take a break, but watching, always watching, as though with enough study it would be able to finally figure him out, to solve whatever problem it thought it had found in him. 

But people weren’t math problems, and sometimes there was no solution.

He swallowed.

 “You can’t always save people from themselves,” he said grimly, holding Carolina close, and the force in the room listened intently.  “This is something we have to do, man.  We have to go out there, we have to check on our friends, or we’ll never be able to live with ourselves.  That’s just the way people are.”

He shivered violently, and part of him wished it wasn’t true but there was no other way it could end, not with Carolina so determined to fight, not with North and Maine out there somewhere at the mercy of the shadows.

“You can’t stop us,” he told it.  “We’ll break the windows if we have to.  So please.  Let us out.”

The only sound in the room was the noise of their breath, visible on the chilled air, and for a long second nothing happened.

Then there was a quiet _click_.

The door opened.

“Thank you,” York breathed, and when Carolina ripped away from him and sprinted out the door he followed with only the briefest glance back as the light flickered out.

Running into the living room was like plunging into ice water, the already frigid air noticeably colder, and York hissed at the shock.  The house seemed dark after the unearthly green glow of his room, and it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of him, but they had no time to adjust, even though he could barely make out the shape of the doorway to the foyer in the gloom.  He followed Carolina, both of them forced to slow or risk crashing into furniture, and so they were together when they stepped onto the parquet and saw the body lying sprawled on the floor.

The world seemed to constrict down to a fine point, and suddenly, York couldn’t breathe.

“North,” Carolina choked, darting forward to crouch next to him where he lay prone at the foot of the stairs while York simply stared.  She grasped his wrist lightly, and then leaned down to place her ear near his head.

She let out a shuddering breath.

“He’s alive,” she said, and York felt almost dizzy with relief.

“What happened?” was all he could say.

“York, you need to call the ambulance.”

“You’ve always said it was faster to drive there ourselves,” he said stupidly.

Carolina glared at him.

“The bannister’s cracked, he must have fallen down the stairs,” she replied, starting to check him for further injuries.  “We can’t move him, he might have hurt his spine when he fell.  Call the ambulance, _now_.”

York stumbled backward, unable to take his gaze from North’s still form until he collided with the wall, jolting back to reality and finally turning to dash to the phone in the living room.

He made the call, his voice and hands shaking and if the person on the other end tried to assure him it didn’t register, nothing did, just that it was happening again, the air frozen and deadly around him and fear sinking in and pulling, tearing until it seemed almost impossible to hold himself together.  Every question took too long, and help was simply too far away.  Dropping the phone when the call was done, York ran back to the foyer where he found Carolina, her face visible in the darkness only because of how pale she had turned.

“He’s bleeding,” she said, and his heart stuttered painfully.  “I don’t—get the first aid kit, in the bathroom upstairs, hurry.”

Nodding dumbly, he rushed to the stairs, climbing quickly but unsteadily, and he slipped as he reached the top, the wood wet beneath his feet.  He barely caught himself on the bannister, nearly falling on the landing and cursing the ice before he realized that the liquid that slicked the floor had no bite, was warm on his skin, tacky on his fingers when he touched it, and he shuddered in revulsion. 

He had become far too familiar with the consistency of blood.

It only took a moment for the meaning to sink in.  There was blood at the top of the stairs, an injured friend at the bottom, cold suffocating the house and fear sinking into the cracks, and in all of this there was one person still missing.  York stared at the dark blood on his fingers, at the streaks of it on the floor and a prickling jolt travelled down his spine as the thought struck him.

Where was Maine?

One moment was too long.

As York pulled himself upright on the landing he was hit with the force of a moving train.  Rushed from his blind side, he saw nothing before he was thrown off his feet and slammed against the wall, the impact punching the air out of his lungs and whipping his head back to crack painfully against the wood.

York saw stars, and he slipped to the floor, unable to breathe.

 

 

 

North was still bleeding.  It was so dark that Carolina hadn’t noticed at first, but there was a wound in his shoulder, a glint of broken metal poking out that she didn’t dare touch, and blood seeping out from underneath him.  She couldn’t turn him over to see how bad it was, didn’t want to chance aggravating a neck injury, but she couldn’t think of what else to do for him.  He was breathing, albeit shallowly, and she could see his eyelashes flutter weakly as he fought to regain consciousness.  He hadn’t passed out from blood loss, then.  He must have hit his head when he fell, as well.

The smell had become terrible, dominating the room and coating her throat and lungs, sticky and suffocating, the bite of the still freezing air the only thing that kept her from choking on it.  Instead, she allowed the cold to work its way inside her, to numb the panic that boiled beneath the surface even as it plucked and scratched at her nerves, every instinct screaming to run.

She had to focus.

It had only been a few moments, but the bleeding showed no signs of slowing, the puddle on the floor oozing outward until it met ice, highlighting the crystalline patterns in red for short seconds until they retreated, fading under the heat of human life.  The only thing she could think of to do was find a clean towel to slide underneath him, to at least try to stanch the bleeding.  It was the best she could do, she thought clinically through the vice she had put on her emotions.  He might bleed out if she did nothing, might anyway since she had no way of knowing how bad the injury was and there were so many things that could be wrong, but moving him was out of the question.

Still, she had to try to stop the bleeding.  It was all she could do.  She couldn’t just sit there and wait, not again.  She had to do something or she would scream.

She had barely made it to her feet when she heard an echoing thud and the walls of the entire house seemed to shake.  Inhaling sharply, she whipped around to look at the second floor, her eyes finally adjusted to the meager starlight that filtered in through the tall windows over the door, reflecting off the ice that still spread like spider webs and cracked glass over the floor and the walls.  The light was dim, an ethereal, hollow blue that barely reached the stairs, but it was enough.

It was enough that she caught the flicker of a shadow as it darted up the walls to the second floor, to where York had gone.

Something in her snapped, and suddenly nothing else seemed to matter.

“ _No_ ,” she snarled, casting around for anything, anything at all, that she could use as a weapon, logic failing her in her sudden need to move, to run, to _fight_ , forgetting that there might be no way to harm the shadows that plagued them.  Her eyes landed on the hilt of a knife, lying broken and bloody on the floor and without question, without stopping to even wonder where it came from, she grabbed it and charged headlong up the stairs.

At the top she did not find what she expected, if she had thought enough to expect anything.

On the east side balcony was a figure in white, huge even as he leaned down to crouch over something on the floor.  The shadow was nowhere to be found.

“Maine, did you see it?” she asked, and even as she said it her skin began to crawl, the pinprick sensation of spiders scuttling up her arms and her throat.  She looked around, scanning her surroundings but finding nothing.  Her hands began to shake in the cold and she gripped the knife tighter, but she didn’t understand.  Every instinct she had screamed that there was danger but the shadow had vanished, disappeared into the murky darkness of the hallway.

Maine rose and stepped towards her.

“The shadow, it came this way,” she said, her eyes still roaming through the deep gloom around them, skittering from corner to corner in search of any movement.  “Where is it?”

She frowned.

“Where’s York?” she asked, turning back only to discover with a start that Maine was far closer than she expected.

“Maine, what—”

He grabbed her by the throat.

In shock she dropped the knife, the blade falling to the floor of the landing as her hands scrambled to latch on to his wrist.  His grip tightened as he lifted his arm, hoisting her off the ground, and she choked, legs thrashing uselessly, barely clipping him as he began to haul her towards the bannister.

It was a long way down.

Carolina beat at his arm, dug her nails into the still healing cuts on his hand, tried desperately to look for anything that could help, her eyes landing finally on the place where Maine had been crouched, at the form crumpled at the base of the wall, and she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe _she couldn’t breathe—_

As her vision began to swim she lashed out with her leg, putting all the force she could muster into the kick, and finally, just as the muscles in his arm tensed as he prepared to throw her down, she connected.

Maine grunted, an eerie, hissing sound that echoed strangely through the house, something barely human, and he folded inward as his stomach took the impact, his arm swinging down just as he let go.  Instead of being hurled over the railing and onto the foyer floor some twenty feet below, she hit the bannister and rolled, tumbling down the stairs, all twisting angles and impacts until her leg, still extended, caught between the spindles and stuck.

A horrible _crack_ rent the air and Carolina couldn’t quiet bite back a scream, the cry tearing its way out of her abused throat.  Unable to move, she lay gasping on the stairs, and tried not to black out from the pain.

 

 

 

York was dazed and winded, collapsed against the wall by the closet and just trying to convince his lungs to cooperate and take a breath when he saw Carolina crest the stairs.  He had been lying still, vaguely hoping it would help him recover faster, even as a blurry white shape loomed over him, reached for him, stopping just short as it was distracted.  Even in the dark he could make out the bright color of Carolina’s shirt as she came towards them, stopped, but everything was fuzzy, swimming, and he knew he should tell her to run but he couldn’t find the air to warn her.  All he could do was watch, a spike of terror driving into him, as the figure stepped between them, seized her, her shape lost behind his bulk, and threw her bodily down the stairs.

He heard the crack, heard the agonized scream and the following silence, and suddenly breathing was no longer his primary concern.

“No,” he choked out, a small, distraught sound that was loud in the suffocating darkness.  The huge white shape at the head of the stairs turned at the noise, and steadily, slowly, as if it knew it had nothing to fear and all the time in the world, it began to walk back to him. 

York levered himself up on one arm, a wave of dizziness nearly forcing him down again, but he had to get up, he had to help her, he couldn’t just lie there when Carolina was hurt.  The thought that she might be worse than hurt trickled through his brain like ice water, filling all the cracks in his mind with fear, but he wouldn’t allow himself to believe it.  He couldn’t lose her, not like this, not to the cold and the terror that filled the air like frozen rain, not to the seething darkness and this dispassionate white specter.  Not to the house.  She couldn’t lose to the house, not when she was the one who was so goddamned determined to stand and fight against it in the first place.  She was the strongest person he knew, tempered steel and fire.  He had said that he believed in her, and he did.  He believed in her spirit, in her stubbornness, in her passion.  He believed that she would fight with every breath she had to save her friends.

But you couldn’t always save a person from themselves, he thought treacherously.  Standing your ground was no use when it crumbled underneath you, and it was a very long way down.

He was breathing again, he realized, finally managing to make it to his feet by using the wall as support.  His lungs had remembered what they were for, and although each breath ached the oxygen was helping, the blurriness and dizziness abating bit by bit.  He could focus again, and through the pounding of his head he could finally make out the person still stalking towards him.

“Maine,” he gasped, his breath still unsteady and his heart thudding in his chest.  Maine didn’t answer, stepping closer, and if York could have backed away he would, but all he could do was press himself against the wall and try to remain standing.

“What are you doing, man,” he said desperately, “what the fuck are you… what…”

As he approached for the first time York got a clear view of his friend.

It wasn’t Maine.  It _couldn’t_ be Maine.  Maine had never looked so sickly pleased with himself, never looked at him like he was an insect whose legs he would gladly rip off one by one, watching him struggle with mild interest before he crushed him beneath his heel.  Even when they barely knew each other, when Maine was a silent mystery and York took every opportunity to poke and prod the people around him, just hoping to bring them out of their shells, even then Maine hadn’t looked at him like he meant nothing, like he was nothing.

York scrambled sideways, nails diggings into the woodwork and trying not to fall, his heart in his throat, and he remembered missing time, lost and broken items, unexplained cuts, and the strange warmth that suffocated the dining room that evening.

Maine stepped close, and it was like standing in front of hot coals.

York had nowhere to go.  Maine’s hand closed around the collar of his shirt and heaved, lifting him up and pinning him against the wall.  His skin was stark and bloodless, and even through the cloth his fist felt like a firebrand against his collarbone.

“What _are you?_ ” York gasped, his hands circling the wrist that was far too close to his throat, and it was like grabbing hot iron, searing his hands even as it refused to move.

Maine smiled, the muscles in his face twisting and jumping into something grotesque, and his eyes burned.

“New,” he whispered, and drew his fist back.

York had no time to defend himself, to bring his aching hands up and fend off the blow, and when Maine’s fist slammed into his head, this time he saw no stars.

There was simply pain, and then impenetrable darkness.

 

 

 

Carolina lay on the stairs, gritting her teeth against the pain as she clutched at her leg, trying to tease it out from between the spindles of the bannister.  The leg was undoubtedly broken, and that clinical voice in her head that she tried to keep at the forefront in emergencies was telling her that moving it was a terrible idea, that it might exacerbate the injury and would only bring her more pain, but she couldn’t stay where she was.  She didn’t know what was happening, why Maine had attacked them or even if it _was_ Maine and not something more terrible, but North was bleeding out below her and she had seen York at the top of the stairs, unmoving.

She couldn’t stay there.

With a pained grunt, Carolina reached up and grabbed at the bannister with both shaking hands, trying to haul herself upright and keep her weight off her broken leg.  Carefully, but still as quickly as she could bear, she leaned forward over the railing and twisted just enough to free herself.  For a moment she was forced to stay still, breathing heavily, her knuckles white on the dark wood.  Then she glanced down to the foyer for only a fleeting second, and hand over hand she began to pull herself up the stairs.

The fall had seemed to take forever but she hadn’t gone even halfway down, she realized.  It wasn’t that far, and although the bannister was slick with ice and the steps themselves wet with scattered splashes of blood, she could get to the top if she just kept going.  If she could just ignore the shrieking pain in her leg she would make it, to York, to Maine, and she wouldn’t be too late.

She couldn’t be too late.

Every step was agony breathed in through clenched teeth, but finally, after what felt like the torturous years of several seconds had passed, she reached the top of the stairs, and lifted her head.

Her heart jumped to her throat at what she saw, the haze of pain that had dulled her senses cut away by the double-edged knife of adrenaline and horror.

Maine had York held off the ground and pinned against the wall, and he was ragdoll limp, head lolling even as their friend pulled back for what had to be at least a second blow.

Carolina might have shouted, might have cursed, or maybe she just moved.  She didn’t know, her ears seemed to be ringing and sound had dropped away as she threw herself towards them.  All she knew was that she had to stop him.  There was a glint on the floor, the knife she had dropped when Maine grabbed her, and she reached for it, cutting her fingers on the broken blade as it tried to slip through her grasp, but she held on.  The upstairs hallway was wide but not an impossible distance, and using her good leg she pushed herself forward in an almost controlled dive, lashing out with the knife as she fell.

She connected, the blade dragging across the back of the knee, and she could feel the resistance as she hit a ligament, snagged on bone and muscle.  Taken by surprise, Maine dropped York to the ground, the body falling with a dull _thump_ , and he reached for her, for the knife, but Carolina wasted no time, letting go and throwing herself against his now injured leg.

He stumbled backwards, tripping at first, but managed to catch himself clumsily on the balcony railing at the head of the stairs.  She didn’t wait for him to retaliate, unable to get up but still able to fight, kicking out with her one good leg and striking him square in the injured knee, once, twice, three times.

He went down with a voiceless howl.  It was a sound that she would never be able to describe, something that was felt more than heard, a scratching, slithering sensation that crawled under her skin, snaked up the back of her neck.  His leg buckled under him and he grabbed at it, letting go of the railing and falling hard, square across the landing.

Carolina’s eyes darted around, her breathing hard.  He wouldn’t be down for long, Maine had always been the type to take a hit and keep going, and whatever had a hold of him now was far from finished with them.  But he was blocking the only way out.  With her leg broken and York dead weight there was no getting past him, and even if they made it down the stairs to the foyer, which seemed more impossible by the second, North still needed their help.  She couldn’t drag both of them out of the house when she didn’t know if he could even more, if she could even stand.

Her eyes landed on the door to the linen closet, directly behind her.

Help was still coming.  They only had to last that long.

She twisted, grabbing for the doorknob.  Her hands were slippery, North’s blood and now Maine’s coating her fingers and making her fumble, but she managed to get the door ajar soon enough.  Fortunately for the both of them, when York had fallen it had been to the side and not in front of the door, and she only needed to drag herself a little bit, teeth clenched and breath sharp, to get herself out of the way and the door fully open.

Behind her she heard a hissing, sputtering growl, pained and angry, and she dared a look back.  Maine was beginning to pull himself up again, his leg bleeding freely and his burning eyes boring holes into her as he gripped the bannister so tightly it looked like it would crack the wood.  Shuddering, she glanced around, looking desperately for anything that she could throw at him, to distract him with, but the hall was empty, the broken knife out of reach and all the other rooms closed and far too far away.

Eyes still darting around the hall, her attention snagged on something strange, a bright red dot blinking away in a corner near the ceiling.  It was small, unobtrusive, probably unnoticeable in the daylight, but in the darkness it stood out like a beacon. 

A camera.

Her eyes widened in sudden clarity.

Price.

“That son of a bitch,” she hissed in disbelief, her fists clenching to quell her sudden trembling.

It was all the distraction she could afford.  Maine had managed to drag himself back to his feet, was testing his injured leg, and she couldn’t stop to see if it would hold his weight.  Grabbing York by the shoulders she pulled herself across the last few necessary inches and threw the closet door open wide.

The door hit the wall with a resounding bang and darkness poured out of the closet like an inky liquid, thick and roiling, but she didn’t care, she didn’t have time.  Pushing through it and hauling York after her with a strained grunt, she dragged the both of them into the unnatural blackness and grabbed the door on the rebound, slamming it shut behind them.

Everything went quiet.

Carolina lay against the solid wood of the door, her hand aching around the knob as she held onto it, the only sure way to keep it shut, and her shallow gasps seemed to echo in the sudden silence.  The air was pitch black, and it felt like trying to breathe through tar, each lungful closer to drowning.

It was suffocating.

She couldn’t hear anything through the door, not footsteps or the rustle of clothes, and the lack of sounds was somehow more terrifying than simply knowing that he was there on the other side, that he knew he was stronger than her, and that her grip could only hold for so long.

How much time did they have?

“…nhhgg…”

Carolina looked down at the tiny, hurt noise, and saw York stirring next to her.  She could have sobbed in relief.  In her rush to stop Maine she hadn’t had time to check whether he was dead or simply unconscious, focusing only on getting them away.  She didn’t know what she would have done if she found herself trapped in the consuming darkness with his corpse, she could only be grateful she wouldn’t have to find out.  He was hurt, badly concussed at the very least, but he was alive.

“York,” she whispered, nudging him gently.  He didn’t respond in any meaningful way, only groaned and tried to turn away.  “York, you have to try to get up, we have to find a way out of here.”

He let out a pained whine, and in the darkness she couldn’t tell if he was looking at her or not.

“ _York_ ,” she hissed.  “You can’t quit on me here, we have to _move_.”

“…n…no,” he moaned, the word small, pained, confused, “…can’t… don’t… don’t let ‘em… ggh.”

She stared at him, realizing he would be useless, that she might as well be alone, and she had never felt so helpless in her life.

Around her the darkness seethed, and her fingers tightened around the doorknob, beginning to shake.

Suddenly, she was angry.

“ _Goddammit_ ,” she snarled.  She tried to look around, searching furiously through the black gloom that filled the tiny space, but there was nothing there to save them.  They were trapped, and soon they would die, dragged out of their refuge by someone wearing the face of their friend, all because some unscrupulous conman had wanted footage of their misery, all because she had trusted the wrong people, all because York had gone poking his nose into things that didn’t concern him.

She froze, panting harshly.

 _He did this_.

It was true, she thought fuzzily.  Haunted or not, nothing bad had happened in the house until York had stirred up trouble, tried to open doors that had no business being unlocked.  York was the one who had found the attic.  York was the one who had brought them all to investigate.  York was the one who disturbed them.  He woke them.  He angered them.

_He did this._

He was the reason they were all going to die.

_It’s his fault._

He should be the one to die first.

_It’s his fault!_

York moaned, a strained, smothered sound, and it hit her like an electric shock, jolting the world back into clarity.

Carolina blinked, looked.

Her hands were around his neck.

“ _No_ ,” she choked out, scrambling off of him, backwards, pushing herself against the back wall of the closet, as far away as she could go.  Her leg hit the floor, jarring the bone and lighting her entire body up with pain, bright and electric, and she bit through her lip to keep from crying out.

Echoes, she thought in a muddle of pain and horror as she tasted copper, foreign emotions that press themselves into you and force you to do things you would never even consider.  Price might have been a liar, but he was right about that.  It wasn’t her, she wouldn’t hurt York, she wouldn’t, and she couldn’t allow it to use her like this.  She wouldn’t let it control her.  She would fight it.  She could fight it.

But it was right, she realized suddenly.  It had all started there, in that closet, the entire nightmare beginning as a scare tactic, a distraction, all designed to keep them away from one thing.

The attic.

Carolina was shaking, she was in pain, she was alone, she was trapped, and she was _still angry_.

Rage filled her, poured in like poison, and she wanted to scream, wanted to hurt, to destroy.  It ran like acid in her veins, leaving a wake that burned through her like fire, and it made her want to break something, to grab York and shake him for bringing the  horrors down on them, to beat him against the floor until his head cracked like an egg—

  She lifted her fist and slammed it into the wall beside her with a wordless snarl.  The sound of the impact echoed, rolled like thunder in the hollow spaces between the walls, and she didn’t even pause, turning all of her fury on the attic door.  She wrenched at the doorknob, pounded again with her fists, and when that wasn’t enough she dug her fingernails into the frame, into the wood, looking for cold iron.  Her hands were aching, still slick with her friends’ blood and now her own, but she didn’t care, pushing her nails under the metal, ignoring the sting of splinters and the cuts of jagged wood to rip, pull, yank.  She would tear it down, find whatever filthy secret lay behind it, expose the lies—

 _Bang_.

There was a sound from the hallway, a tremor like a door being slammed, and a rushing noise like wind and whispers filled the closet, washed over her and left her cold.

Carolina’s hand dropped limply as the anger that drove her was smothered like a snuffed out candle flame.

 _It’s no use_ , she thought, pinned by exhaustion.  She knocked her clenched, aching fist against the wood weakly and left it there, pressing her temple against it, suddenly too tired to even hold up her head.  Opening the attic wouldn’t help them.  They’d never make it more than a few feet and she didn’t even know if there was anything there, it was just another door to put between them and certain death, just another barrier that would be immediately torn down.  It was pointless.

 _You’ll never make it,_ said the whispers in her mind with cold certainty, the emotionless, unvarnished truth.  _You can’t fight it, you never could.  You never had a chance.  You should never have tried._

Behind her the doorknob to the closet rattled and began to turn.

_It’s hopeless.  Don’t fight it._

There was a soft click, a quiet creak.

 _You’re out of time_.

The door opened.

 

 

 

Everything was… cold.

There was ice under his cheek, frost that spread like the bare branches of winter trees, sharp and empty until each delicate twig faded into the hazy distance.  The world beyond it was a blur, and he didn’t have the energy to try and bring it into focus.  He couldn’t feel his fingers, his hands, everything numb, and for some reason he couldn’t quite process he was grateful for it.

He had heard noises.  There had been voices, a scream, slamming doors and the sounds of impacts, but they were confusing, strange, and he couldn’t seem to make them mean anything, every thought moving in a slow trickle like melting snow.  Then they had died down, and all he was left with was the spreading cold and his own shallow breath and thready heartbeat.

There was something he needed to remember.  There was something he needed to do, but he couldn’t concentrate, and when he tried to think of what or why he only found a vague sense of anxiety, muted dread that shivered in his chest and threatened to bloom into real terror.  It would be too much, it took too much. 

He was just so cold, and everything seemed so far away.

There was a hand in his hair.

…South? he wondered dimly, tried to say, but it was a jumbled, slurred mess, all sibilants and no substance.  The hand paused with a slight tremble before moving again.  The touch was delicate and cool, petting softly.  No, it wasn’t his sister, she would never be so tender.  She was angry with him, he remembered hazily, the thought bleeding through and settling, an unchangeable, lonely truth.  She was going to be so angry with him.  It wasn’t her, she wasn’t there, and the fingers he felt were small and hesitant as they stroked his hair in an awkward attempt at comfort.

 _Don’t go_ , he thought.  Heard?  There was something desperate and sad in the words that he knew somehow wasn’t his own, a whispered plea that made him ache and want to reach out, but he was so tired, so cold, and moving felt impossible.

_Please don’t go._

It seemed to go on forever, eternity found between each fluttering beat of his weakening heart, time frozen by the engulfing cold and trapped in the hollow blue light of stars.  The world was dim, and cool, and quiet, and each breath seemed to bring less air, but even as he realized he should be afraid he could feel that gentle touch, hear those tearful whispers.

He wasn’t alone.

Vaguely he became aware that the light had changed.  The frost took on a greenish cast, threaded through it like new leaves and ferns, and a shadow fell over him like a blanket of darkness.  The comforting touch stilled.

 _Please_ , he heard, soft and fraught, _can’t we help him?  Please…_

The shadows flickered on the edge of his blurred vision, a pressure in the air that was felt more than seen, and he thought he heard a murmur, low and indecipherable, like overhearing a voice in another room that only spoke in changing tones and pitches, music with no words.  The hand on his head remained immobile, as if listening, and then began to tremble.

 _No_ , the voice whimpered brokenly, and he wished he could offer some comfort in return, to find a way to soothe that distress, but every part of him was numb, dull, fading.  _It can’t be too late._

The light glimmered, the shadows moved.

 _I can’t.  I can’t leave him_ , he heard, small fingers tangling in his hair with only the slightest pull, grounding him, holding on.  _He’s… he’ll be all alone._

There was something he needed to remember.  There was someone… someone who needed him.

Light and shadows breathed around him.  He was caught by the shifting patterns, their graceful dance, and his concern slipped away, lost in their songs and sighs.

 _But we can’t stop them_ , the little voice murmured, shaking and childlike.  _We could never stop them.  They’re so strong._

The green light seemed to waver, then strengthen, and the shadows darkened with it, the ice crackling under his ear.

_Together…?  Almost… like we used to be?_

A murmuring hum, the flickering stars, the burn of ice.  He noticed these things but they seemed remote, disconnected, and he drifted until he felt that little hand move again, smooth and delicate across his forehead like a soft goodbye.

 _I have to go now_ , his little friend whispered.  _We’re going to save them.  We’re going to try.  I don’t think I can come back, and I’m sorry, but you were right.  We have to try._

The hand fell away, and with it the word went numb.

_I’m sorry, North._

He wished he could say that it would be alright, but he couldn’t find the words, each breath shallow, too fast, not enough.  The light flared and went out, the green vanished, the stars extinguished.  The little boy was gone.  All that was left was shadows, and even they didn’t stay to keep him company.

That was okay, he thought wearily as the world dwindled and slipped from his grasp, and even the cold seemed to fade.

He didn’t have the strength to thank them anyway.

 

 

 

The door opened and they were out of time.

It was a scene from her nightmares, Carolina trapped in the darkness, a tall figure looming in the doorway, framed by the meager light of the hall, his white clothes seeming to glow except where they were wet and almost black with blood that wasn’t his own. 

 _There’s no way out_ , she thought with cold certainty, a niggling whisper in her mind, in her ear, creeping in on doubt and insecurity.

_You can’t fight._

_You can’t run._

_It will only hurt you more._

York was still by the door, barely conscious and clearly unable to defend himself, but she hesitated, didn’t dare reach out to him, afraid not of the brutal figure that stalked them but of her own treacherous hands.  Then her last chance was gone, Maine’s arm snaked down, one huge, strong hand reaching again for York’s throat, and she could only watch in exhausted, trembling hatred as York’s weak, confused attempt to fight him off proved useless.

_It’s too late._

She was tired, she was broken, but she refused to look away, even as Maine began to haul him away.  She wouldn’t close her eyes against this horror.  She owed them that much.

 _Don’t fight it_.

Too late she stretched out in one last attempt to pull him back, her fingers grazing his ankle as he was dragged back into the hallway.  Too late she tried to save him.

 _You can’t win_.

Too late, too late, too late.

_You could never—_

The hallway exploded with motion.

From the depths of the foyer shadows raced up the walls, up the stairs, reaching the balcony and bursting from the wood, flaring up and blowing outward like a black cloud studded with flickers of light, blue, red, green, yellow, tiny glittering sparks that twinkled and then vanished as the unearthly shade coalesced and crashed down like a wave.  It hit the white, blood-flecked figure and he staggered as it swarmed him, wrapped around and slid over him, into him, seeping through his skin and pouring down his throat.  He jerked with a hiss, with a snarl, his grip on York abandoned as he grabbed and clawed at his own neck, hit his palms against his head and stumbled backwards, into the hallway, away from the door, and Carolina’s heart leapt to her throat.

It was incomprehensible, howling chaos, she didn’t understand, but she watched with wide eyes as the shadows leapt on their attacker, and through the shock she realized that they might still have a chance.

The shadows seethed and roiled, and Maine collapsed onto the floor.  Suddenly the balcony was filled with impossible fire, flames licking the walls, crawling over the floor, away from her friend, and he was burning, writhing, screaming, but the way was clear.

The way was clear.

Carolina gasped and lurched forward, crawling out of the closet to where York lay groaning, dragging herself to him.

_You’ll never make it._

She heard the dull whisper in her mind, in her heart, but for the first time she recognized that the voice wasn’t her own, an insidious undertone that latched onto her doubts and tried to drag her down.  She ignored it and pushed on, gritting her teeth and clawing for any scrap of energy she could find inside herself to get away.  She wouldn’t listen this time.  It was wrong, they were lies. 

They had a chance.

_No, it’s hopeless, you can’t make it, you can’t escape._

She would, she thought furiously, digging back into that banked anger, she would or she would die trying.

_NO—_

She breached the closet door, fingers clutching the frame, and the shadows surged around her.  The voice in her ear turned from a whisper to a shriek, became a scream, became a squeal, and then tapered and vanished.  The unearthly fire that filled the hallway began to flicker, guttered and died, extinguished by the black haze that only appeared to swell and grow as the house was plunged again into bleak darkness.  The shadows churned and boiled, the darkness seemed to lurch, and suddenly the feverish, wild rage that had sunk into her bones was gone, ripped away and dragged into the shadows, leaving her breathless and hollow.

She was running on fumes, aching and empty, but it didn’t matter.  She had to move, she had to keep going, there was no other choice.  She couldn’t give up, not again.  Whatever was happening in the darkness, in the shadows, it wasn’t focused on her, distracted with its own fight and fury.  She could still make it.  She could still save them.  She had to.

Carolina dragged herself across the hall, finally pulling herself even with York, but in her haste her toes caught on the frame of the closet door, snagging and wrenching her broken leg, and agony shot through her like a lightning bolt.

She couldn’t help it.

She screamed.

The shadows spun and whirled, and her skin erupted with prickling goose bumps as she felt its attention snap to her.  All it took was that single second, a moment of distraction, and then a rushing sound moved through the house, a pressure in her ears that felt like the roar of a wrathful heartbeat, a sensation of speed that rattled the windows and shook the floorboards.

The darkness fled.

It ran like ink down the walls, across the hallway, streamed across the stairs in a gush like an oil slick, trailing a sickly purple sheen that clung to the wood for seconds before evaporating.  It coursed downward and away, cascading into the foyer, flooding the cracks in the parquet and flowing on until below them she heard the creak and slam of the basement door, and the sound vanished.

It was gone.

Everything stopped. 

Long seconds passed by undisturbed, and even the air seemed somehow lighter.

Carolina lay shaking in the sudden silence, pain rippling through her, and told herself to get up.  Her breath was loud in her ears as she grasped the spindles of the balcony railing and used the last of her strength to force her aching, trembling body to sit upright.

The house was hushed, still, and dark, but it was the simple darkness of a mountain night, and across the gaping well of the foyer she could see stars through the tall windows over the front door, moonlight shining through ice that had all but melted on the glass.  Next to her York lay, quiet and barely moving.  He mumbled something slurred and unintelligible as she curled an arm over him protectively, the only comfort she could offer as she looked around her.  In the hallway, only a few feet away, Maine was crumpled on the floor.  She could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, could just make out his eyes, open but blank, staring into nothing.  He made no move as she watched him, not the smallest twitch of his fingers or flicker of expression.  He was no longer a threat.  They were safe from him, at least.

A tingling chill slid down her back, like a fingernail running along her spine, and in the breathless quiet she turned to look behind her.

There was a shadow on the wall.

Carolina stared.

It was stark in the light of the no longer quite full moon, flat and black against the wood like a burn or a stain, indistinct but undeniable.  It crouched as if kneeling, cast with no source on the wall across from her, bare inches from the closet door, and she could still feel that tingling prickle that meant it was watching her.  She looked back, trembling, disoriented, defiant, but she made no move, she didn’t have the energy to even try.  All she had was a question.

“Why?” she rasped, her throat torn and aching from screams and abuse.

The shadow seemed to look at her, its head cocked to one side, and then it shifted.  Between seconds and heartbeats it resolved, became sharper and more defined than she had ever seen it, and suddenly its shape was terribly clear to her.  It was a shape she knew from her father’s old, torn pictures, from her own fuzzy memory. 

It was the shape of a woman.

The shadow moved, lifting its hand as though reaching out, and on the edge of her hearing she could just make out the strains of a song, a low humming, breathless and off-key.  It was almost toneless, wavering even as it seemed to gain strength, but it moved through her like a shiver, stayed like an ache.  It was a song she knew, not quite a lullaby but meant to keep the bad things at bay, murmuring of home and comfort, mourning for lost goodbyes and promises better left forgotten.  She knew it too well, and as it went on the words formed in her mind, coming to her softly like a ghost or a memory.

_As time draws near, my dearest dear, when you and I must part, you little know the grief and woe in my poor aching heart…_

The shadow blurred but the song continued, rising and falling on the familiar melody even as it quavered, and at first she didn’t realize that she was crying.

_‘Tis blood I suffered for your sake, believe me dear it’s true._

Carolina brought a hand to her mouth, and distantly she noticed that her cheeks were wet.

_I wish that you were staying here, or I was going with you…_

“Mom?” she whispered, her own voice hoarse and unsure.

The singing cut off abruptly, and the shadow jerked back.  It seemed to shake and tear, its hands clenching into fists even as the edges came undone on some furious, sharp emotion, and Carolina felt something in her break.

You can’t fight the past, Carolina, she thought, her arm tightening around York and holding him as close as she could as she remembered his words.  You can face it, or you can run from it, but you can’t fight it.  Not forever.

She couldn’t fight anymore, she thought, she couldn’t fight and she couldn’t run.

If you don’t say goodbye, she thought, they’re never really gone.

The words were an echo of a voice long dead, but this time, at last, Carolina listened.

“Goodbye,” she said on a choked whisper, and the figure froze.

It looked at her, just a dark shape stamped onto the wall, an old hurt, a hazy memory.

A shadow.

“Goodbye,” she said, stronger, and the song echoed in her heart.

There was a breathless second’s pause, and then the shadow shattered, bursting into tiny motes of color that sparkled like diamond dust in the light of the moon before fading into nothing.

Carolina sat in the quiet, empty night, leaned her head back against the bannister for one long moment, and allowed herself to breathe.

She looked across the hallway to where Maine still lay, unmoving and unresponsive, and she knew there was nothing she could do for him.  She looked back.  The staircase opened on her left, and it might as well have been a mountain or a canyon, a path to the moon.  She would never make it down.  Even if she did it would be pointless.  She was at the limits of her body, and she had nothing left to give.

Carolina checked York’s pulse, her fingers shaking, and finding it strong the very last of the adrenaline that had been keeping her going faded and died.  Even sitting felt exhausting, and she leaned forward, curling over York and pressing her head against his shoulder.

“It’s gone,” she told him in a tired whisper, and it was the only thing she could do, the only thing she could say until she heard the soft wail of sirens in the distance.

“It’s gone.  We’re safe.”


	6. Epilogue: The Orphanage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the Epilogue: Major Character Death, discussions of major character death, grief, not so great coping mechanisms, alcohol abuse, amateur explosives, arson, car accidents, canon-typical language including ableist language.
> 
> Well, here we are at the epilogue and the end of Part 1. Holy crap, guys! This is by far the biggest writing project I’ve ever undertaken and I have had such a great time sharing it with you all. Thank you to everyone who’s been reading, and especially to those who have commented, you guys are amazing and I’ll never get over how nice you are.
> 
> Since this is the epilogue I wanted to mention something: The chapter titles are basically a rec list of some of my favorite ghost movies (although some of them have not-so-great remakes), which in many cases were huge inspirations and influences for this story, especially the movies that lent their titles to the first and last chapters. The Uninvited (1944) and The Haunting (1963) are fantastic black-and-white haunted house films with a ton of atmosphere, and if you're looking for a creepy ghost film to watch for Halloween I definitely recommend them. If you don't like them too scary, though, watch The Uninvited, which is not terribly frightening by today's standards and also features a really interesting mystery. The Haunting, on the other hand, is a film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, which is probably my favorite horror novel and a huge influence on my writing of this fic, especially the opening and closing, which are a straight up homage to the book.
> 
> I hope you can forgive me for leaving so much unresolved for now. As I’ve said before I’m writing the next story for the RvB Big Bang. This means that I’m absolutely committed to writing it, but also means that I won’t be able to post it until mid-February at the earliest.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

 

 

It was cold out, the air in the mountains falling into the grip of autumn, caught and trapped at just above freezing.  There would be frost in the morning, tracing the leaves that littered the ground in fine lace, and even the softest of breezes had a bite.  It was the kind of cold that left an ache deep in the bones of anyone who weathered it too long, sank in and stayed and made them brittle, the kind of cold that would drive any sensible person inside.

The wind whistled through the almost bare branches of the trees, stung at her cheeks and her ears, and she glared at the house from her spot in the courtyard.

It was late at night, or early morning, she couldn’t remember which and frankly she didn’t care.  The house loomed in front of her in the dark, lit by a moon that didn’t even have the dramatic sense to be full, and every window was a toothy, jeering grin.  It was the only shelter for miles, its old gray walls strong despite the fading of years, but she wouldn’t go inside, even if there was nothing stopping her.  The yellow flicker of police tape waved at her from the front steps, having come untied from the thin pillars that held up the porch.  No one had bothered to remove it, just left it there on the floor like so much garbage, forgotten in the rush to do other, more important things.

She sneered at it.

Taking a long drink from the beer she held in a white knuckled grip, she drained the bottle and then threw it, the glass hitting the blue painted steps and exploding into shards with a satisfying crash.

South stood, shaking, on the gravel, and then turned on her heel and went back towards her car.  Kicking open the cooler she had dropped near the back bumper, she looked at the collection of bottles inside, moonlight glinting off the glass, and reached in to grab one.

It had been a month.  A whole damn month and still nobody had answers for her.  The police had recovered the footage that asshole Price had taken when he set cameras up in the house.  He claimed he had permission, was investigating in the interests of science, but South had seen the dead-eyed hatred in Carolina’s eyes when she asked about it, the one and only time she had gone to see her in the hospital, demanding retribution.  The visit had ended in screaming obscenities, curses hurled like knives while the redheaded bitch said nothing in her own defense, and South didn’t regret a single word, didn’t care if they hurt, wasn’t satisfied with just the knowledge that Price didn’t have a leg to stand on and would probably go to jail.  She didn’t fucking _care_.

Her brother was dead.

The wind was her only company, running chilly fingers over her neck, tangling in her hair, and it was the cold that was making her shake, it was the cold leaving her numb and miserable.  Her hand skated over another beer and she shoved it aside, going instead for a bottle half buried at the back corner, wrapping her fingers around the neck.  Everclear, the label read, 190 proof.  It was the stuff CT kept under the sink at home to use as a cleaner, she didn’t know South sometimes snuck some of it into her own mixed drinks at parties.  The bottle wasn’t quite full, the alcohol sloshing up to only three quarters of where it should be, but it was enough.

South lurched to her feet and stomped back to the house, yellow and brown leaves grinding into the gravel under her boots with a crisp crunching sound and that unsteady feeling of shifting, slipping, that she blamed on the unstable terrain, the whole world seeming to tilt and teeter.  She didn’t care.  She was cold, but she had a way to keep warm.

She opened the bottle.

“This is for you, asshole,” she said, taking a sip.  Coughing from the fumes and the taste, she poured a little onto the ground of the small courtyard, just shy of the mess of broken glass.

“Probably don’t even appreciate it,” she grumbled, her eyes watering from the potency of the alcohol.  She wiped at them roughly, and refused to acknowledge that her vision stayed blurry, her cheeks wet.

“Fucker,” she said, reaching into her jacket pocket.  “You fucker, you always made me be the bad guy.”

“South?”

She hadn’t heard the rumble of a car approaching on the gravel, wasn’t paying attention enough to notice the purr of the engine or the slamming door, but she couldn’t miss CT’s voice behind her, not when it was laced with worry and too much pity.  She didn’t turn to look, didn’t move at all, still clutching at the bottle of alcohol, her other hand clenching into a fist around the contents of her pocket.  There were footsteps behind her, and then a hand fell on her shoulder, small and soft, like she thought even the slightest pressure would break her.  South gritted her teeth.

“South…” CT started, and South shook her off with a violent shrug.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she hissed.  “I didn’t let him coddle me, why the hell would I let you?”

CT didn’t say anything, shifted back until the cold moved between them, but she also kept her hands to herself.  Mission accomplished.

South never took her eyes off the house, its over the top gloomy façade like something out of a second-rate theme park attraction.  The House of Horrors!  Pay five dollars and see everyone who cared about you ripped to shreds!  God, it was stupid, the kind of lame-ass theatrics that shouldn’t be allowed in reality.  The media was eating it up, pictures in the newspapers, on the internet, all over the local news stations.  One of the news stories went national just that morning, tales of haunted houses and murder, the perfect way to kick off Halloween, like it was fiction, like the people involved didn’t matter, didn’t have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

Her grip on the bottle tightened.

“All I wanted was a goddamned year to myself,” she said.  “Just one fucking year where I got to be someone besides _the other twin_.”

She took another sip, ignored the burning in her throat, in her eyes.

“Now I’ll never be anything else,” she spat.  “Not even in my own goddamned head.  Asshole probably did it just to spite me.  Him and his _ghosts._   It’s _bullshit_.”

“You know that’s not true,” CT said quietly, like she was some sort of authority on what made North tick, and South whirled on her with a glare.

“Yeah?” she said.  “You know so fucking much about it, CT, why don’t you go ahead and tell me what _is_ true?  Because it’s been a whole goddamned month and nobody has been able to tell me _why_.  All this talking but nobody wants to tell me what the fuck really happened.  The police have the whole shitshow on tape and the bastards sit on it and pretend this was a—an act of God or some bullshit!  Where the fuck is the justice in that?  They haven’t even arrested anyone!”

“They arrested Price this morning,” CT told her.  “We heard about it at the paper.  Everyone told the police that he wasn’t authorized to set up cameras in the house.  They have him on invasion of privacy, if nothing else.”

“ _Price_ ,” South said with an ugly laugh.  “Who gives a shit?  He wasn’t the one with the knife, was he?”

CT shifted uncomfortably and looked away.

“They can’t arrest Maine, South,” she said.  “You know that.  Besides, nobody’s willing to point fingers.  York doesn’t really even remember.  They said the recordings aren’t clear enough to figure out exactly what happened, anyway, especially towards the end.  There’s too much static.  They’re going to have to wait and question him when he wakes up.”

“ _When_.  Yeah, right.”

“It’s not impossible,” CT said, but it sounded empty, it sounded _sad_.  “People wake up from comas, South, and when he does then… then we can ask him about it.”

“Right,” she sneered.  “Like Maine ever had much to say even before he went psycho.”

At that CT did look back at her, her expression hard.

“Don’t,” she said.  “After everything else that happened here, you can’t think it’s that simple.”

South only continued to glare at her, and CT sighed, her breath a white puff in the cold night air, visible for only a second before fading away.

“You want to know why,” she said.  “I do, too.”

She looked at South, her brown eyes intense, and South knew that look, could catalogue the number of times she’d seen it, had to drag CT away from her newspapers and computer just to get her to sleep for two fucking hours before she was at it again, digging, searching.  They were the eyes of someone lost in a mystery, and South wanted to shake her, to take the jigsaw puzzle she’d made of their lives and scatter it until she saw them as people again.  This wasn’t a campfire story, this wasn’t a fucking detective novel, this was real life, and the pieces that were missing weren’t cardboard and ink.

Her brother was dead.

“I know it’s too late to help,” CT said, “but I’ve been looking through the records again, and I think I’ve figured it out.  I thought it was just a mistake at first, but it crops up too many times, if you know where to look.  The missing piece, a reason the house might be haunted.” 

If her grip was any tighter around the neck of the bottle the glass would shatter under her hand.

“It’s not in the information about the building itself, or even the older family history, that’s what tripped me up.  It’s all more recent, South.  Carolina had an older—”

“FUCK CAROLINA!” South bellowed, and it took all of her willpower not to throw the bottle at the house, but she couldn’t, not yet, she needed it.  “Where the hell was she when my brother was bleeding out on the floor, huh?!  Hiding in the fucking closet with her precious asshole boyfriend!  This whole fucking thing was her stupid idea in the first place, bringing everybody up here where they can’t get any fucking help when they need it.  Taking everybody away.  She did this, it’s her fault, it should have been _her!_ ”

The sound South made then was a growl, a choked back snarl.  It wasn’t a sob, it wasn’t a sob because she was done crying about this.

But her brother was dead.

“Why couldn’t it have been her,” she said.

She was shaking again, furious and cold, CT looking at her with a stricken expression.  She looked like she was going to try and reach out again, but she hesitated, and good, she had learned, because if CT tried to touch South now she would be going home with a black eye.

“South…” she said, her hand still raised uncertainly until South turned her glare on it and she slipped it back into the pocket of her heavy leather jacket.  “South, Carolina made some bad choices but she didn’t know this was going to happen.  Price lied to her, too.  She thought the house was safe.  You can’t blame her for that.”

“The hell I can’t,” South retorted through gritted teeth.  “She’s the first aid whiz or whatever.  She didn’t even _try_ to save him.”

“First aid certification can’t fix everything,” CT said.  “She’s not a doctor.  She did everything she knew how to.  You might as well blame the EMTs for not making it sooner or—or failing to save him in the ambulance.”

“Oh, I _do_ ,” she snarled.  “I blame _all_ of them.  And if that bitch thinks I’m going to let it go then she belongs in the nuthouse with Wyoming and Wash.”

“ _South_ ,” CT said, starting to sound upset, starting to sound angry, and it made South’s stomach curdle with vindictive pleasure, burning and acid.

Or maybe that was the alcohol.

“Someone has to fucking pay for this,” South growled, turning away, back to the house, and finally taking her hand out of her pocket.  “Someone has to fucking _burn_.”

She twisted the bandanna in her hand and shoved the end of it into the still more than half full bottle of Everclear, 190 proof, almost pure alcohol, flipping it over until the cloth was soaked and her hands wet.  Still shaking with the cold she wiped her fingers on her jacket and dug back into her pocket until her fist clenched around her lighter.  It was purple, she remembered drunkenly, North’s favorite color.  Hers as well, although she’d always been adamant that she preferred a different shade.  Now he’d ruined that, too.

He always made her be the bad guy.

“What are you doing?” CT asked, unable to see clearly with South’s body blocking her view.  “South, you’re drunk, you need to come home—”

“ _No_ ,” she said, her voice steadily rising as she went on, working herself back to a crescendo of fury.  “She can’t just let—just fucking walk away from this.  Her and her asshole boyfriend and her haunted house _bullshit_.  She doesn’t even fucking _care!_ ”

“Of course she cares!” CT cried.  “He was our friend!  Everyone is devastated, how can you say that?”

“MY BROTHER IS DEAD,” South roared, and it was the first time she’d said it out loud.  A whole goddamned month later, and it felt like spitting acid, breathing broken glass and fire and it burned, it would _burn_.  “She let him fucking _die_ and she gets to pretend like nothing happened, she gets to _forget_.”

“South, stop—”

“She can’t!” she screeched, fumbling for a second before flicking on the lighter, and fire bloomed like a deadly flower in her hands.  “I won’t fucking _let her!_ ”

The soaked cloth caught instantly. 

South ignored CT’s startled shout behind her and turned, hurling the bottle with every scrap of force her drunken rage could supply.  Her aim had always been shit when she was drunk, never as good as her brother’s, and it was something North had always teased her about, but for once in her life it didn’t matter, and the impromptu Molotov sailed up and over like a comet before exploding on the balcony.

“ _Shit!_ ” CT yelled as flames erupted on the wood, darting past South as she stared, entranced by the flickering destruction and sudden warmth.

The ceilings of the house were high, the walls tall, and the balcony was not in easy reach, but CT was agile and frantic.  Using the elaborate molding around the windows to gain purchase she pulled herself up, higher, until she could reach the iron railing and climb over.  She took off her heavy leather jacket and began to beat at the spreading fire, but it only seemed to fan it, billowing outward and burning feverishly.  After a few seconds she clearly realized it wasn’t working and changed tactics, throwing the leather down over the flames and trying to smother them instead with her jacket, her shoes, her hands.

It took a minute, but she managed to put the fire out, snuffing out the warmth and light, leaving them again in the dark and the cold.

South watched the fire die, watched CT stand, trembling, on her brother’s balcony, and suddenly all she felt was numb.

After a long moment of silence, the sparks and embers fading into nothing, CT climbed back over the cast iron railing of the balcony and dropped back to the ground.  Her jacket was ruined, singed and blackened, and she threw it down on the leaves, shaking from the cold or something more.

“God _damn it,_ South,” she said, her name a hiss.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!  You never fucking listen!”

CT stormed closer, and South could see the redness on her hands, even in the dark, she could see the streaks of ash on her pants, the glint of fury in her eyes.

“Not everything is about you, South.  You’re not the only one who’s hurting,” CT spat.  She was tiny compared to South, but she always managed to get right up in her face when she was mad, and when her patience ran out she was sharp and poisonous, always willing to cut.  South had always liked that about her.  “You’re not the only one… we’re— _fuck_.”

She turned away for a second, her breath hissing, cradling her right hand to her chest, and even in the dark South could see it was beginning to blister.

South wasn’t going to apologize.

“You’re drunk,” CT said, turning back to her with hard eyes and bared teeth.  “You’re fucking drunk and I’m not dealing with this right now.  We’re going home.  Get in the car.”

“You can’t… you can’t,” South muttered, still looking at her burned hand.  It probably hurt like a bitch.

“Well I’m sure as hell not letting you drive,” CT retorted, stomping back towards their cars.  “I promised North I was going to look out for you until you got your shit together and started talking to him again, did you know that?  It was one of the last things he fucking asked me to do.  Get.  In.  The car.”

South bristled.

“ _Fuck you_ , Connie,” she said, but she wobbled when she tried to step towards her, almost lost her footing on the shifting ground, the gravel slipping under her feet.  CT didn’t let her get another word in, came back and grabbed her arm with her uninjured hand and physically pulled her along, dragging her stumbling and cursing across the driveway to her car.

“Give me your keys,” she said shortly, and South glared at her in bafflement.

“Why?” she mumbled, her words starting to slur as those few swallows of Everclear began to blur the world.  “You can’t even… take your own keys, I don’t fucking… don’t need your help.”

CT glared at her.

“You’d be just as likely to make it home if you tried to walk,” she said snidely.  “Your little dramatics back there fucked up my hand, South, I can’t drive my car like this.  Yours is an automatic.  Give me your fucking keys.  Now.”

South didn’t respond, just glared back, and eventually CT gave up and simply went through her pockets.  She found the keys and unlocked the doors, shoving South none too gently into the passenger seat and shutting the door on her before going around and slipping into the driver’s side.  She hissed in pain every time she touched the keys, the gearshift, but soon they were moving.  Soon they would be home.

South stared out the window and watched the house grow small in the side mirror, disappear between the dark trunks and bare branches of the trees, dead leaves falling in every gust of wind.  The forest closed in, empty limbs reaching out with skeletal hands, grasping and clutching, spindly twig fingers scratching across her nerves as they tried to pull her back, make her stay, hands and fingers and bones piling up until they blocked her view and the house was gone.

It was cold in the car, and South was still shaking.  She thought she might never stop.

“Everything has to be about you, South, doesn’t it?”  CT muttered under her breath, almost too quiet to hear, but the silence in the car was too fragile to withstand a blow that harsh, and South wasn’t nearly as drunk as CT seemed to think.  “Never fucking listens.  Never listened to him, how the hell am I supposed to get her to listen to me?  Fuck.  _Damn_ it, North, how— _damn it_.”

Even dead he was still the more sensible one, South thought fuzzily, sinking down, leaning against the car door and letting her head hit the window with a dull thump and a quiet ache.  Even though he was dead he would still be the one people turned to first.

South watched the forest creep by in the darkness, shrink back from the unforgiving glare of the headlights, and fade into obscurity as they passed.

The thought burned.

 

*

 

“I need your help.”

South took the phone away from her ear and gave it a suspicious look.

“Are you kidding?  I haven’t seen you in days, and now you’re pulling some sort of spy movie bullshit on me?” she asked incredulously.  She rubbed at her temple, pain spiking through her head, but that’s what you got when you drank yourself to sleep every night.  “Are you fucking serious?”

When she woke up on the first of November with a horrific hangover and a persistent hollow ache in every part of her, CT had already been gone.  It had been almost noon on a Thursday, so South assumed she had gone to classes already, and she wasn’t really interested enough to investigate further, the vague memory of their little fight the night before still a sour taste on the back of her tongue, mingling poorly with stale alcohol and bile.  She’d simply rolled over and said fuck it, fuck school, fuck everything, and gone back to sleep.  No one cared if she showed up to her own classes anyway.

That had been days ago.  CT was avoiding her, or had given up on her, who could tell?  South had found herself alone in their apartment, suddenly all echoing space and silence, and she had nothing to fill the emptiness except more alcohol, so that’s what she did.

“Where the hell are you?” she asked, glancing again at the number on the phone and scowling when it still wasn’t one she recognized.  She didn’t even know why she’d picked up in the first place, the phone ringing in the silence of the midmorning while she had been wondering if getting up would be worth it.  Maybe the idea of talking to a stranger had seemed appealing, but she wasn’t even allowed to have that, apparently.

CT was silent for a moment.

“I was arrested,” she finally said, and South felt the slow train her thoughts were taking shudder and rumble to a halt.

“What?” she asked, completely nonplussed.  “What for?”

There was another short silence and then a burst of static, like an aggravated sigh or a grinding of teeth.

“For attempted second degree arson, South,” she growled.

“ _Arson?_ ”

“Apparently the _Director_ ,” CT spat the title and South was still lost, barely noticed the vehemence, didn’t know what it meant, “was concerned about the news stories going national on Halloween, getting too much attention.  He went up the next morning to make sure no one had vandalized the house and do you know what he found?”

“I—”

“He found a fucking failed Molotov, my burned up jacket, and _my car_ ,” CT said, her voice lowering to a hiss.  “They picked me up at school, South, I’ve been _in jail_.”

“It didn’t even burn down,” South said stupidly, her brain still moving slowly, barely awake and possibly still a little drunk.

“That doesn’t mean lobbing burning alcohol at a house isn’t illegal,” said CT tightly.  “It’s still a class H felony, and the Director is trying to get them to throw the book at me.”

“But you didn’t do it.”

CT went quiet again, and South had to check to make sure that the phone hadn’t dropped her call. 

“I think he found out I’ve been looking through his records,” CT said quietly.  “South, I think he’s afraid I found something incriminating. Which means there’s something there to find.  If I keep digging—”

“Are you fucking serious?” South spluttered, her brain finally catching up with what she was hearing.  “You think he got you arrested and you’re still snooping through this guy’s shit?  Fucking hell, CT, you don’t live in a goddamned mystery novel, you’re in _jail_ —”

“And whose fault is that?” CT interrupted her with a hiss.  “You don’t exactly have a history of making the best fucking decisions, South, so for once will you just shut up and _listen to me_.”

South froze.

Because that wasn’t her style, was it?  South was the one who didn’t listen, she thought furiously.  North was the one people went to for advice, for friendship and patience, for help and support.  South was the crazy one, the party kid, the one who made mistakes and got people arrested, she was the one who didn’t give  a flying fuck about consequences, who ran on instinct and passion.  South was the fuckup, South was the lesser twin.

South was the _only twin_ now, and there was no one to hold her back.  She didn’t have to listen to anyone, especially not someone parroting her brother, her brother who couldn’t even stay alive to fucking scold her himself.

“Look, felony cases are dealt with by the Superior Court in the next county, and it’ll take some time.  I think I’ll be able to dig something up before then, but first I’ve got to post bail and I don’t have enough cash,” CT was saying, talking fast and leaving no room for argument, and the plastic of the phone creaked under South’s grip.

“It’s a first time offense so it’s not nearly as much as it could be, but I can’t call my parents for this, they’ll kill me, I need your help—”

“That’s too bad,” South said, and for once in a life spent running hot her voice was colder than ice.  “You’ll have to talk to someone else.  _I wasn’t listening_.”

“ _What?_   South—”

She disconnected the call.

 

*

 

_“…latest tragedy in a string of incidents connected to the Church estate.  Reports indicate that she was on her way to appear in court for the charges of felony second degree arson when the accident occurred.  She was arrested the day after Halloween for attempting to burn down the house where her friends were attacked in what police have called a fit of grief.  As her lawyers have previously told us, she planned to plead Not Guilty.”_

South watched the dispassionate face of the newscaster and not the photo of the wreckage.  The woman’s expression was appropriately grim but not truly invested, not really interested in anything but doing her job.  It wasn’t real to her, and if South focused hard enough on that maybe it wouldn’t be real to her, either.  She watched until the images on the screen blurred, but it was too late, the words of the story were already burned into her eyes, a brand she wasn’t allowed to erase or forget.

_“A full investigation is expected, but for now police have told us that they do not suspect foul play.  The mountain roads are known to be icy and treacherous in the early winter, and communities have been petitioning for guard rails to be built in along that road for some time.”_

She was shaking again, and there was a noise in her ears, a high pitched wail like a siren, like an ambulance.

_“Darryl, do you think the accident will finally convince them to do something about the railings on those turns?”_

_“We’ll have to see, Sherry, this might be just the kick they need.  It’s an awful tragedy.”_

_“You’re absolutely right, Darryl.  Now, for local weather—”_

South fumbled for the remote, finding it eventually on the coffee table and only dropping it once before she finally turned off the television.  The image blinked out, leaving her alone with the silence of an empty apartment, the cacophony in her own mind.

 _Church House Incident Claims One More_.

Melodramatic bullshit, she thought distantly, staring at the blank TV, and she couldn’t see around the sting in her eyes, couldn’t hear over the beating of her heart and the whine of her breath, short and shallow.  There was a noise in her ears, in her head, a painful keening that amplified and echoed, and she grabbed at her hair and pulled until she screamed and screamed—

Her phone was ringing.

Breathing hard, South could only glare at the buzzing device for a long moment before she swiped at her eyes and reached out to pick it up.

 _Carolina_ , the ID read.

South stared at it.

Had CT gone to stay with Carolina?  She didn’t even know.  She didn’t know what CT might have told her, who had posted the bail, she’d been drunk when CT had finally come home that night and taken her things, silent and fuming.  She’d been too drunk to realize that CT wasn’t coming back.  Had she moved into that little apartment across town, hastily rented when Carolina’s house became a crime scene?  Or had she gone back to the dorms, back to her friends at the newspaper?  South didn’t know. 

She hadn’t asked.

South had spent every day since then waiting.  Every day was the day they would knock down her door, beat down her lies.  Every day was the day they would drag her away and tell her she deserved it.  She probably wouldn’t have even argued with them, she probably would have been too drunk to care.

They never came.

CT had gone away, and they never came.

South stared at the phone, her knuckles white and bloodless around the plastic.

Carolina had attempted to contact her since then.  Even York had tried, which was a new low, being pitied by that asshole.  She hadn’t answered, not once, not the phone and not the door.  She didn’t need them.

She didn’t need anyone.

 _Carolina_ , the phone said, persistent and angry, demanding an answer.

 _Carolina_.

She didn’t have anyone.

“ _Fuck!_ ” South yelled, hurling the phone at the wall.  It hit with a splintering crack, breaking into pieces that fell to the floor with a listless clatter, the ring going on for a few seconds before the sound warped into something terrible as it fizzled and died.

“ _Fuck._ ”

South shook. 

Her living room was too quiet when the television was off, too cold when all the bottles on the coffee table were empty.  The sofa was lumpy and uncomfortable, not the right size for one person, and every inch of the floor was space she didn’t want or need.  It was too much for just her.

She didn’t have anyone else.

South reached for the bottles on the table, her hands trembling until she clenched them around glass.  One by one she took the bottles, the shot glasses, the tumblers, and brought them back to their little kitchen, tossing them into the trash, into the sink.  Connie always hated it when she left the apartment messy.  She stood silent for a moment at the sink, staring at empty glass.  Then she went back to her room and began to pack her things.

North was dead.  CT was dead.  There was nothing left for her here.

She didn’t have anyone.

She didn’t need anyone.

South shoved her things into a bag and grabbed her keys.

It was this place, she thought as she opened the door into the crisp winter air and stepped outside.  The mountains shivered, empty trees shaking in the wind with a tremor that raced along the ridges and peaks.  It moved with a howl and a moan that sent chills down her spine even as she pressed forward into the cold light of day.  Somewhere in those mountains the house stood in a clearing surrounded by skeletal trees and painful memories, a construct of wood and iron that crouched like a predator, preyed like a monster.  The windows were eyes and teeth and claws, sunlight glinting off the panes, sharp and piercing.

Even miles away she could almost feel it watching her.

There wasn’t anything left to take from her, but she wasn’t going to hang around to find out what happened next.  South kicked the door shut, hiked the bag up on her shoulder, and set off to the parking lot.

South ran.

 

*

 

There was nothing wrong with the house itself.

That’s what they told themselves as they stood in its shadow, wandered its dark halls in the company of cold sighs and distant sobs, echoes in the night with no origin.  That was their refrain as they stepped inside, ignoring the prickle of hair rising on their arms and the feeling of breath on the back of their necks, and that was their mantra as the walls closed around them.  It was just an old building, a house if not a home, with faded paint, dusty windows, and floors that creaked with the footsteps of generations. 

It is the stuff of legends, you see, the source of stories that spin and weave and dance without prompting.  There is blood between the cracks of the parquet, smears of ash on the railing of the balcony.  There is a darkness that lingers in the basement, a hushed grief and strangled dread that seeps through the walls of the tower bedroom, and soft footsteps overhead, shut tight behind a door that needs no locks.  It looms, tall and still, a quiet tomb in a graveyard of stunted trees and withered dreams, and when the wind blows the air is filled with the sound of a whisper.

There is nothing wrong with the house itself, but there are memories here that wait in the shadows.  Like a faded photograph, a moment frozen in time and stamped upon reality, a pale face that looks out between the boarded up slats of a half broken window, seen only out of the corner of your eye.

There are memories here, and they are watching.

They are waiting.

 

 

THE END

Part I: The Ghosts that Linger


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